


tame this animal I have become

by larienelengasse



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Star Trek Reboot - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:49:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1497262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larienelengasse/pseuds/larienelengasse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a man has to take a stand. Sometimes he has to choose to his enemies over his allegiances. And sometimes doing the right thing changes a person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 OEAM Big Bang. Takes place after the events in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Title from the song “Animal I Have Become” by Three Days Grace; the lyrics fit my vision of Khan and Kirk’s relationship.

_“Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.” ~Niccolo Machiavelli_

**Prologue**

Silence. It was all he knew. His people were dead and he was alone. Once there had been hundreds of voices echoing in his mind, each one distinct, each one loved and known. Even during their long sleep he had heard the voices of his companions, until Marcus had woken him. The moment his eyes opened their link was shattered.

He was forced to watch as one-by-one his people were woken and then held at gunpoint; once proud rulers and warriors, husbands and wives, reduced to pawns in Marcus’ mad quest for war. The fear in his loved ones’ eyes was only visible to him as Marcus threatened and tortured them, making him to watch in order to force his capitulation.

When they slept on the Botany Bay, they numbered eighty-four. By the time Khan finally gave in, they numbered sixty-three. Twelve lives had been lost when stasis units on the Botany Bay failed. Another ten lives, ten souls, were extinguished by a madman. He knew those who had been killed would rather die than be enslaved, but that had not made it any easier to watch. Most died without so much as a single sound to give voice to their agony, or a single tear to express their love for him – though he had seen it in their eyes. It wasn’t until Marcus woke the children that he finally gave in.

Humans were ugly creatures, in his estimation. They were petty and small, ignorant and filled with vile envy and fear. And his own kind was perfect and beautiful, with no one to turn to but each other. They had never known kindness or love or compassion from their creators, only cold detachment. When the day came that they were no longer children, when their bodies were strong and their minds stronger, that was when things changed. That was when they seized control and stopped being experiments and became rulers. It was what they were bred for, after all.

Their creators resisted, unwilling to allow their creations control. Wars broke out, the world fell into chaos, and in the end they had been forced to leave because even among the lesser of their own kind there were petty feuds and despots. He had taken those he had known longest, those most loyal and beloved to him, and fled, choosing self-imposed exile over watching his own kind self-destruct.

There had been silence now for what felt like an eternity, though the outside world knew it had only been a few months. Alone in his sleep, he began to call out to the dark, to the silence, even though he knew no one would ever hear him again. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, a quiet voice came from out of the dark. It asked: “Why?”

* * *

  
**Chapter One**

“Why?” Kirk murmured, alone in the hospital room. “You could have left, you could have escaped.”

He stared at Khan’s image through the small window in the cryotube. He wanted to know why Khan had done what he did, how it all began. Was he always a monster, or had he been different in the past? The augment slept, a placid expression on his face that made him look vulnerable. With those ice-grey eyes closed, with the curtain drawn on all the hatred and rage that burned cold in them, Khan was more intriguing than ever.

“I am better.”

Khan said he was designed to be better than human, and Kirk couldn’t help but think Khan’s designers had a master plan. Yes, he was physically attractive, but in a way that was slightly wrong. He wasn’t beautiful in the way Uhura was, with symmetrical features that were alluring and non-threatening, or handsome like Sulu, with a rakish smile and warm brown eyes. Khan’s eyes were undoubtedly his most prominent facial feature (them and his ridiculously expressive mouth) but they were on the verge of being too small, too far apart. His physique was, at first glance, nonthreatening. He was tall, but not necessarily physically imposing. But if one looked closer, if one saw that he was strength perfected - chiseled muscle and bone encased in flawless pale skin - one could see the threat he imposed. And the way he moved like a great cat stalking his prey, often slow and deliberate, then in the blink of an eye with explosive speed and power. Kirk was intimately familiar with Khan’s battle prowess – he had fought both beside and against him. In point of fact, Khan had put the worst beating of his life on him. Khan was indeed built to kill and he was damn good at it. Kirk knew that at any time Khan could have snapped him like a twig.

Kirk stepped closer to the tube and leaned forward a bit, taking a closer, longer look. Khan’s beauty was alien, foreign and cold like a sculpture; nonetheless, Kirk couldn’t stop looking at him. Perhaps it was those small imperfections that first drew him in. Maybe that was the master plan. Khan was interesting to look at, and once you started looking, you couldn’t stop. And while you were looking, he’d stop your heart.

Kirk didn’t like this at all. He was, and had been since the attack on Starfleet Headquarters, painfully aware that he was out of his depth. All of his typical self-confidence was gone. A good part of it died when he lost command of his ship and the rest had died with Pike.

“You think your world is safe. It is an illusion.”

He shook his head as Khan’s voice echoed in his memories. At first, he had wanted to kill John Harrison, the Starfleet officer turned traitor and murderer. He wanted to end the life of the one who had killed the closest thing he had to a father. He had been enraged by such an unprovoked, violent attack on an institution whose very existence was defined by a humanitarian intent. But then he learned the truth. John Harrison was a fiction, and the truth had been so much more frightening.

“Are you going to punch me again over and over ‘til your arm weakens? Clearly you want to…”

That first altercation should have been his first clue that Harrison, or Khan as he was truly known, was not a normal man. Kirk had hit him with all he had and Khan had not even responded, he had not even bled.

“Damn your voice,” Kirk muttered. “I want to forget it.” But did he? Did he really? If he wanted to forget, then why was he standing there looking at Khan?

He clenched his fists, but he couldn’t stop looking at the augment through the small window. He relaxed his hands, and then clenched them again. He felt different. Bones would say that’s what happens when you’re brought back from the dead. But it wasn’t just that he was recovering, he felt . . . different.

He laid his hands on the top of the cryotube and leaned closer. Khan’s voice echoed in his head, over and over. He heard it all the time now; it came unbidden at all hours of the day and night, sometimes waking him from sleep. That deep resonant baritone, the slow, deliberate way he spoke, clear and refined… it caused his emotions to range from fear to rage to pain to something he either could not or would not identify. He thought he might be losing his mind.

He felt the pain of betrayal as much now as he did when Khan had spoken so slowly and deliberately about the truth and motivations behind his murderous rampage. Kirk had so many unanswered questions that there had been no time to ask. He also never knew if he could trust that he was hearing the truth from Khan.

One of the many things that Khan mastered was manipulation. But buried deep underneath Kirk’s own immediate sense of loss and betrayal, he had begun to understand Khan during those first conversations in the brig. He had felt the augment’s pain when he saw the tears fall from his pale, haunting eyes. He knew what it felt like to lose what one loved more than life itself. He knew what it felt like to want revenge. He now believed that was the one honest moment that had passed between him and the augment, and even that had been calculated.

“My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?”

Khan had read him like a book and Kirk had allowed it. When he watched the surveillance playback of the interrogation, he saw it himself. He saw in his own eyes when he started to change: when the rage turned to empathy, when the connection first started to form.

He never should have done it. He never should have let Khan out of the brig; he never should have set him free after everything he had seen him do to Starfleet. Hundreds of his crew had died because of Khan’s attack on the Enterprise. Hundreds of men and women, whose names and faces he had committed to memory. He had known what the augment was capable of – he had seen him take out an entire squadron of Klingons almost single handedly. Not even Spock moved that fast or with such precision. No, that was the mark of a stone-cold killer. Hell, he had watched Khan crush Marcus’ skull with his bare hands.

“You cannot even break a rule. How would you be expected to break bone?”

And yet, he still set him free.

He should hate Khan. He should. But he couldn’t. He wished it were that easy, that Khan was the sum of his violent and murderous deeds, but he knew he wasn’t. Khan was no two-dimensional villain. He wanted Khan to be more, to truly be better as he said he was. Perhaps this was because he had a part of Khan flowing in his own veins and that made him feel less like a monster, less like a science experiment and more like a man.

Maybe he wanted a hero, needed a hero now that Pike was gone. Khan could be that. He could be so much more than he was. Who knows what Khan could have been had his circumstances been different? He knew how insane that sounded, how misguided he probably was, but maybe if Khan could be better, he could be better too. Maybe he could be what Pike had believed he could be.

“You seem to have a conscience, Mr. Kirk.”

And he did, dammit. Putting Khan back into cryostasis felt wrong, but they had no choice. Spock would have killed him if they hadn’t needed his blood. Khan was a one-man wrecking machine and would destroy everything he touched, leaving a path of death and destruction behind him. His pure, unadulterated hatred turned everything he touched to ash. They had to put him back to sleep to keep him from wreaking further destruction.

But that was then, and this is now. Placing him in cryostasis on board the Enterprise as a means of self-perseveration was one thing, but handing him over to Section 31, to the very organization that sparked the violent, deadly string of events that got them where they currently were, was something else. Everything about what Starfleet was currently ordering was abhorrent, but what was the right thing to do? Khan had to pay for what he did, he had to answer for his crimes, but this wasn’t payment. This was . . . enslavement. The augment was rendered defenseless, helpless, inanimate. As reassuring as it was as to see Khan in this inanimate sleep, unable to hurt anyone else, something deep inside Kirk broke to see him this way.

“Help me.”

Khan’s voice kept echoing in his mind, but up until that moment it had been memories, things Khan had said to him when it had all begun.

Until that moment.

Kirk felt compelled by something he could not name and he reached out and moved his hand over the window on the cryotube in a mock caress of the augment’s face as a knot formed in his chest. “I don’t know how,” he whispered to Khan.

“Kill me.”

Kirk yanked his hand away as if he had touched something hot.

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath as he backed away and raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m really losing it.”

“Jim?”

Kirk turned and found Bones looking at him with an expression of unabashed concern.

“What are you doing here?” the good doctor asked.

“Are you sure he’s really out?”

Bones nodded. “He’s out. I put him down myself.”

Kirk bristled at Bones’ words, but he buried it deep. “Can he…. hear or sense anything?”

“His higher brain activity has been shut down, along with the rest of his systems. All that’s left is what keeps him alive.” Bones showed Kirk Khan’s vitals. “See? If he wasn’t frozen, he’d be in a persistent vegetative state.” He frowned. “We don’t really know what happens in the human mind in a coma state, but I can tell you he doesn’t feel any pain.” Kirk didn’t look right. “You are supposed to be resting. You’re lucky to be alive,” Bones said.

There was that familiar tone Kirk had grown to love so much.

“I’m fine, really. I just had to… see,” he said, as he looked back at Khan.

“Alright, you’ve seen. Now get your ass back in bed. That’s an order.”

Kirk forced a smile to his lips and turned to look back at his old friend. It was harder to turn away from Khan than he thought.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going.” He placed his hand on Bones’ shoulder and gave it a squeeze before heading to the door.

“They’re coming for him tomorrow and it’s not soon enough,” Bones said.

Kirk stopped and stared straight ahead. “Where are they taking him? Off world?”

“I don’t know and I don’t give a damn. I just want him out of my sight. Just looking at him gives me the creeps. I hope they lock him up and lose the key.”

Kirk nodded, trying to ignore the panic that was starting to build inside him. “Have you seen Spock?”

“Just this afternoon,” Bones answered. “He’s testifying at an inquiry tomorrow. We’re all going to get turns in front of the inquisition.”

“What do you think they’re going to do with them?” Jim asked.

“Who?”

“Khan’s people.” Kirk turned to look at Bones. “Only Khan committed crimes, the rest are innocent.”

“I don’t know and I don’t wanna know. That’s a decision for those above my pay grade.”

“Khan said they were designed to be better, to lead others to peace in a world at war. I’m afraid that Marcus was right and war is coming, Bones. Maybe, one day they could protect us.”

“I think Khan’s proven that waking any of them is too big a risk.”

Kirk turned away from Bones. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Now, go home and go back to bed. That’s an order.”

Kirk smirked and nodded, “Yeah, alright.” He glanced up at the clock over the door. It was 10PM. It would be another long night.

* * *

 

Kirk rolled his shoulders and head, stretching his neck. He felt exhausted yet stronger than he had ever been in his life. He functioned on a bare minimum of sleep, three to four hours at most. His body seemed to work fine with that, but he felt like his mind was starting to unravel.

A quiet chime alerted him to someone at the door, and he looked at the view screen to see Spock waiting patiently.

Kirk opened the door to his apartment and found Spock was still in uniform.

“You asked to see me, Captain.”

Kirk motioned for Spock to enter. “How’d it go?”

Spock followed Kirk into his living room. “The inquiry?”

“Yeah.”

“It appears that we will not be held at fault for the incursion into Klingon space, nor will there be any sanction against the crew. We are, however, ordered to stand down until the repairs on the Enterprise are complete.”

“And then?”

“Unclear.”

“And Khan?”

“He will be taken to a detention center and kept in cryostasis with the rest of his people. He will no longer be a threat.”

Kirk nodded. He looked out the window of his living room. The city was being rebuilt below him. “Something about this doesn’t feel right, Spock.”

“What are you referring to, Captain?”

“Why isn’t Khan standing trial and answering for his crimes? What about the Vengeance? Didn’t anyone on the tribunal ask where that ship came from? Didn’t they say anything about its purpose?”

Spock did not answer, but Kirk could tell his friend had been asking himself those same questions.

He turned and looked at Spock. “The Vengeance was a battleship, not an exploration vessel. One man cannot hide something as massive as the construction of a ship like that.”

“Agreed,” Spock answered. “The Vengeance was unlike any other Starfleet vessel. It would have required materials not previously used, for which there should be records.”

“Should be?” Kirk asked.

“I have been unable to find any records, schematics, bills of materials, or labor contracts that support the construction of The Vengeance.”

Kirk frowned. “There had to be others in Starfleet that knew that ship was being built.” He clenched his fists. “They’re trying to cover up what Marcus did.”

“Who are ‘they’, Captain?”

“I don’t know. Have you found the head of Section 31?”

“That information is classified.”

“This is a classic cover-up.”

“That is a sound conclusion.”

“And I bet they’re going to resume experimenting on Khan. Especially now that…” he looked down and relaxed his fists. He had never felt stronger in his entire life. He was even starting to look better. His eyes were clear; he was more muscular than he had ever been before. Any extra body fat he had been carrying was gone. His metabolism had increased, and his thought processes felt clearer, more precise. He noted the look on Spock’s face. His friend was nothing if not observant.

“The tests done on Khan’s physiology could yield information that leads to cures for diseases and saves millions of lives,” Spock answered.

Kirk began to pace in front of the windows. “He is a human being, Spock. Since when has Starfleet ever condoned, let alone conducted experiments on a sentient being? Hell, we don’t even experiment on animals anymore, and now they’re going to experiment on an advanced human?”

“Captain—”

“We’ve got to get him out of here,” Kirk said, urgency creeping into his voice. “We should get him and his crew and take them all far, far from Federation space.”

“Captain—”

“We could set them adrift in cryosleep, just as Marcus found them. Return them to…”

Spock frowned and moved toward Kirk, not liking the look in the Captain’s eyes.

“We can’t… I can’t let this happen again. They deserve a chance, Spock. They deserve a chance for their freedom.”

Spock stepped into Kirk’s path. “Even if this were advisable, how would you propose to do this?” he asked. “Getting Khan and his people away from Starfleet and off world will be next to impossible. They are under heavy guard even while in cryostasis.”

“I don’t know.”

“This is a treasonable offense.”

“I don’t care.”

“Jim—”

“I will not stand by while a human being is treated like a 20th Century lab rat!” Kirk barked as he stepped into Spock’s space. “We have done enough to them already.”

Spock placed his hand on Kirk’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Need I remind you, Jim, that we have not done anything to them. It was Khan who committed acts of terrorism against the Federation. It is Khan who is responsible for the near destruction of the Enterprise and murder of your crew, for the murder of Captain Pike…” He squeezed Kirk’s shoulder harder when his friend closed his eyes and began to shake his head. “…not to mention your own death. It is Khan who is responsible for the destruction just outside your window.”

“He’s also responsible for the fact that I’m alive and standing here arguing with you.”

Spock gently grasped both of Kirk’s shoulders in his hands. “Not of his own volition.”

“I’m not saying that he’s innocent. He should answer for what he has done, but he should stand trial and receive the same sentence as any other person who had committed terrorist acts. Treating him like a lab rat is—”

Spock sighed and released Kirk. “While it is true that they share your genetic code and were created by humans, they have proven themselves dangerous throughout history,” Spock countered. He handed Kirk the data pad that he had brought with him and sat on the table when the conversation had begun. It contained the records he had received from Spock prime. “This is what they did before Khan and his people entered a self-imposed exile on The Botany Bay, and what they did when encountering us in the alternate timeline.”

Kirk read the history of the augments and their tyrannical rule and enslavement of the human race. When he came to the chapter on Khan, he learned that the augment oppressed his subjects and restricted their freedom, but that they were kept healthy and humanely, and he did not start a single battle. His actions were focused on protecting the borders of his lands and all the people that lived inside them. It wasn’t exactly noble, but it wasn’t exactly cruel either.

Then he came to the Captain’s logs containing Khan’s encounters with the Enterprise and her crew in the alternate timeline. His stomach rolled when he read what Khan had done, what a monster he became after being stranded on Ceti Alpha V. Kirk’s thoughts went back to what Khan said to him, about how he was provoked into violence, into defending, and then avenging his crew.

“Marcus took my crew from me. He used my friends to control me . . . I had no choice.”

It seemed that in both timelines, Khan had been driven by the same motivation – the preservation of his people, and revenge for their deaths and torment.

“He was telling the truth,” Kirk said quietly.

“Captain?”

“Marcus did control him, Spock.”

“That is likely.”

“He lied about Khan being a war criminal.”

“I do not understand your statement. Khan subjugated millions of people that lived under his rule. Do those actions not constitute war crimes?” He was asking, but it was a rhetorical question. Khan’s actions were, by their very definition, war crimes.

“Did you read this, Spock? Did you see what some of the others did? How they tortured, starved, beat, and killed millions of men, women and children? Khan never did those things. At worst he was a dictator…”

“And at best?”

“He protected those under his rule from the violence of war.”

“In both realities, he has proven to be a dangerous, violent, obsessed man,” Spock said.

“Only because he was driven to it,” Kirk said. “Imagine what he could have been if…” Kirk began to pace back and forth. “Nothing he did was deserving of what is about to become of him. There is nothing that anyone could do that would justify treating them as a lab rat, Spock. This is wrong. We can’t be a party to this. Enough is enough.”

“Jim,” Spock’s tone softened. “This will spell the end of your career. You will be subject to court marshal. You will spend the rest of your life in prison.” He approached Kirk and placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Is it advisable to risk all of that for a monster? For that is what he is. He may be humanoid, but he is not human.”

“This coming from a Vulcan,” Kirk muttered bitterly.

If Kirk’s words injured Spock, he didn’t show it. “Need I remind you that I am half human.”

Kirk let out an exasperated sigh and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.”

“You are still recovering and are not yourself. Give yourself time to think upon what we have discussed.”

“Yeah, that’s it. I’m fucking exhausted, if you want to know the truth.” He walked to the bar, and then he dropped an ice cube in a crystal glass and poured Scotch into it. He lifted the glass, swirling the amber liquid then taking a sip. “I’ll sleep on it.”

“Promise me you will not do anything foolish.”

“I promise.”

Spock raised one eyebrow.

“I promise, alright?”

“Very well.” Spock clasped his hands behind his back and left Kirk alone.

Kirk wondered when an augment who tried to kill him and his entire crew became important enough to lash out at one of his closest friends.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

_“You and I are alike. Is this what you would want? Would you not want it to end? Is it not a mercy?”_

Kirk gasped and sat up in his bed. He was sweating, his heart was pounding, and every hair on his body stood on end. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and groaned, the sound almost breaking into a cry. He had not slept through the night once since he had woken from the coma.

Khan’s voice. It was with him all the time, growing louder, more urgent, less like a memory and more alive.

He closed his eyes. “I won’t let this happen,” he whispered. “If I can’t free you, I will kill you.” He swallowed a lump in his throat upon saying the words.

Long moments passed and all Kirk could hear was the sound of his own ragged breathing and the pounding of his heart. He lay back in the bed, his weary eyes staring at the ceiling. “I don’t want to kill you,” he whispered, “but I should. And I don’t know why I don’t.”

_“You have a conscience.”_

“I think you do too.”

Kirk rolled out of bed and poured a scotch straight up, then downed it, grimacing as he welcomed the burn of alcohol. He looked at a bottle of pills on his bedside table. He popped the top off and placed one on his tongue, pouring another scotch and drinking it down with one tip of the glass.

He had to get some sleep before he completely lost it. Talking to this voice in his head was clearly a step in a bad direction, never mind the fact that he had a voice in his head in the first place. Tomorrow, he would find out all he could both about Section 31 and the augment program. Then he would know what to do.

* * *

 

Kirk entered Engineering and looked around, smiling and nodding at the skeleton crew that worked to repair the Enterprise’s systems. He paused when looking at the warp core. He barely remembered going in there, let alone not coming out.

“Mr. Scott,” Kirk said with a somewhat forced smile, leaving the warp core doors and walking toward his Chief Engineer. “She’s looking good. If I didn’t know better I wouldn’t even know she had almost been destroyed.”

“Aye, Captain. She is beginning to recover. In no time she’ll be stronger and faster than she was before. It’s good to see you up and about.”

“How are the repairs going?”

“Very well, Captain. Though, I could do with a wee bit more help rebuilding the impulse drive unit.”

“Scotty,” Kirk said quietly, leaning in. “I need your help.”

“Captain?”

He placed his arm around Scotty’s shoulders and led him away, speaking quietly in Mr. Scott’s ear, “I need you to tell me everything you know about Section 31.”

“I know as much as you do, Captain.”

“Tell me what you remember about what you saw off Jupiter.”

Scotty frowned but nodded, walking through the Engineering section with his Captain.

* * *

 

Kirk entered his apartment after the formal inquiry in front of Starfleet Command and found Scotty, Spock, and Bones waiting for him.

“Gentlemen,” he said, before stopping at the bar and fixing himself a scotch on the rocks. “What can I do for you?”

“Where in the hell have you been?” Bones asked. “You missed your appointment. We were supposed to meet before the inquiry.”

“I went to the archives to do some reading,” Kirk answered. “I’m fine, Bones. Stop being such a mother hen.”

Bones held up one of his diagnostic instruments. “You’re not fine. Your vitals are way off the chart. You haven’t been sleeping—”

“Will you stop? Just…” he placed his hand on Bones’s wrist. “Just stop being a doctor for . . . I don’t know, five minutes?”

“You have requested a leave of absence, Captain. Is there something you would like to tell us?” Spock asked.

“You’ve what?” Bones asked.

“Okay…” Kirk answered with no small amount of surprise. “Word gets around quickly. I need some time to recuperate,” he said. “I thought of all people, you’d approve, Bones.” Kirk took a drink of his Scotch. “Frankly, it was Command that recommended it, if you could call it that.”

“They placed you on administrative leave?” Bones asked.

“They suggested, and I use that term loosely, that I take it.”

“You are planning something, Captain,” Spock said. “We would know what it is.”

“I’m planning a fly-fishing trip, Spock.”

“Fishing?” Spock arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah, fishing. Fresh air, sunshine, the great outdoors.”

“Is that why you asked Mr. Scott to illegally access the databases containing information about Section 31?” Spock advanced toward Kirk.

“I’m sorry, Captain. But you know how persuasive Spock is when he wants to know something.” Scotty looked incredibly guilty.

“Dammit, Jim! What are you up to?” Bones barked.

Kirk let out an exasperated sigh. “All you need to know is I am going fishing to get my head back together. I’ll return when Starfleet command decides where they’re going to put me. It’s clear from their inquiry that they have no intention of giving me my ship back. I thought you’d approve, Bones. A little R&R, isn’t that what you’ve been demanding I get for the past two weeks?”

“If I thought for one damn minute that you were actually going fishing, I might.”

“Apparently, going fishing is a euphemism. Would you care to enlighten us, Captain?” Spock asked, standing inches from Kirk.

“He means to break the son of a bitch out, that’s what he means to do!” Bones groused. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind? He’s a murderer, Jim!”

Kirk set the glass of Scotch down a little harder than he intended. “What they are doing is criminal. You all know it is wrong. It is bad enough to be highly classified and they are outright denying that they’re doing any of it!”

“Captain, they are keeping him in cryostasis, indefinitely. He is not aware of his surroundings or his condition,” Spock said.

“Bullshit,” Kirk growled. He looked at Scotty. “Tell them.”

Mr. Scott sighed. “They mean to wake the poor bastard up.”

“Tell them Scotty; tell them all of it,” Kirk said, his voice level but laced with anger.

“They’re going to wake him up and study him. That’s what the sealed records said,” Scotty answered.

Bones frowned. “Are they waking all of them up?”

“As far as I can tell, it’s just Khan,” Scotty answered.

“This goes against everything we believe in, everything we were told the Federation stands for,” Kirk said.

“I don’t think it’s wrong. Frankly, I’d kill the son of a bitch if his blood weren’t worth its weight in gold,” Bones said.

Jim pointed at Bones. “You don’t mean that. They’re going to keep him sedated and bleed him and experiment on him, forever! You tell me, Bones. What will that be like for him? Will he be conscious? Will he know?”

Bones didn’t want to answer the question. He hadn’t quite thought of it this way before. He hadn’t quite thought past his hatred of the augment. He hadn’t quite thought of him as human.

“Will he know?!” Kirk shouted.

“Yes.” Bones finally answered. “They’ve got to bring him out of cryostasis to do it, in order to get accurate readings from him. They’ll keep him in a chemically induced coma. He won’t be able to communicate or move, but he’ll be aware. He’ll hear everything, feel everything.”

“And he’ll grieve,” Kirk said. “He’ll grieve thinking his crew members are dead and he is powerless to help himself. He’ll suffer for as long as he is alive, and we all know that will be a very long time. You tell me, who between them is the monster now? Khan or Starfleet?”

Kirk’s friends fell silent. Bones and Scotty were studying the toes of their boots but Spock looked him straight in the eye.

“You are correct in that they are wrong to take this action, Captain. While their intent to cure disease is logical and even noble, their methods are an inhumane punishment. At the very least it is unethical, and it is in direct violation of the principles upon which Starfleet was built.”

“I know everyone thinks I should walk away from this,” Kirk said. “But I can’t do that. I can’t pretend this isn’t happening, but I can save him and his people.”

“Save them?” Bones asked, incredulous. “And when he wakes? What then?”

“I’m telling him the truth, about all of it. About the repercussions of his genetic modifications, about how we tricked him about his crew members, everything.”

“Is that wise? Will this not further solidify his resolve to destroy Starfleet?” Spock asked.

“I don’t know, Spock. But Starfleet has done nothing but lie and manipulate Khan since the day they woke him up. The ones who created him in the first place only did so to use him. I learned a lot by reading the records of the augment program. He has never known friendship or kindness or loyalty or truth from anyone other than his own kind. They were all taken from their biological mothers as infants. They’ve not known even the love of their own parent. Maybe it’s time we told him the truth. Maybe it’s time that someone showed him that we’re not all the same.”

He sighed and picked up a book lying on his desk. Printed books were rarities, and the one he held was very old and very valuable. As he opened it, the spine cracked softly and he said, “Admiral Pike gave me this book when I completed my first year at the Academy.” He turned to a bookmarked page. “He once quoted Machiavelli to me from this book. It says: “A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.” He caressed the page before closing the book and laying it back down.

“Machiavelli was at best a political animal, and at worst ruthless, but these words have meaning to me. Maybe they’re a bit naïve, but I think they still hold true. Christopher Pike was that good man that I aspire to be. Though Khan caused his death, I believe that Pike would say that we have to do what we can to right these wrongs, despite the enormity of them.” Kirk looked at his friends. “We have all tried to be the best we can be. Starfleet is supposed to be a beacon of peace and knowledge and truth, and I cannot, will not stand by and let its mission be tainted by the power hungry that are polluting its ideals.”

He looked out the window. “I know this doesn’t make any sense to you. It barely makes sense to me, but I know I have to do something or I’ll never be able to look at myself in the mirror again.”

“He is just as likely to kill you as spit on you, you know,” Bones said.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Kirk said. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Bones shook his head in exasperation. “You really think that by simply showing him kindness that you can change who he is? Leopards don’t change their spots, Jim.”

Spock frowned, but looked his at his friend resolutely. After a few moments, he said: “If you are determined to do this, we will help you.”

“Have you lost your mind too?” Bones barked at Spock.

Spock raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond.

Kirk stepped forward. “No. I am not risking all of your careers as well as your lives on this. This one is on me.”

“You cannot do this alone. You will need assistance,” Spock protested.

“You’ll need me to get you past the security systems,” Scotty said.

Bones uttered a sound akin to a growl, then he spoke: “And you’ll need me to disconnect him and keep him sedated while we figure out where to hide him. You’ll also need me to wake him up, if you’re fool enough to do it.”

“If we get caught…” Kirk began.

“We will all be subjected to court martial,” Spock finished in his customary matter-of-fact tone.

“You’re going to have to lie, Spock,” Kirk said. “No one outside of this room can know what we are doing.”

“I cannot lie, Captain. But, I believe I can avoid answering certain questions.”

Kirk put his hand on Spock’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“I am not doing this for Khan,” Spock said. “But you are correct about the danger this poses to the future of Starfleet. I cannot stand by and watch this institution be destroyed from the inside.”

“I’ve got a friend who owes me a favor,” Scotty said. “He’s a salvage man. He repos old ships and sells the scrap.”

“And just how does a junked ship help us?” Bones asked.

“They’re not all junk,” Scotty answered with a sly grin, “and they can’t be traced.”

“We will need something inconspicuous, a cargo ship would be optimum, as Hangar One receives several deliveries per day.” Spock said. “And then there is the matter of stealing sixty-three cryotubes.”

Kirk sat on his desk and watched his friends plan the entire thing out. A smile spread across his face. ‘No, Khan. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to help my family. Nor is there anything they would not do to help me,’ he thought.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

 

It was simple, as plans went. Khan and his crew were being held at Hangar One, awaiting transport to an undisclosed medical research facility. They were primarily interested in Khan because he was the most successful result of the augment program; his genetics were the benchmark upon which all others were created. He was the first successful result, and the best of his kind.

 

Hangar One was a heavily guarded, shielded facility. They could not beam Khan and his people out without bringing the entire system down, and that was, for all intents and purposes, impossible given their current resources. So, the only other way to free them was to physically remove them from the facility and they couldn’t get them all out at once, not without Khan’s help. Spock surmised that once Khan was freed, Starfleet would likely move his people in order to prevent a further attempt to free them. At the very least they would double security. Breaking them all out would be near to impossible, but not quite, not with the right knowledge and resources.

 

A body swap would never work. Khan’s biology was unique and not replicable to them with their current resources and time. So the plan was to convince the Section 31 officials that Khan’s body was stolen – entirely plausible given its value – and subsequently destroyed in the explosion that would result as the “thieves” were pursued.

 

Mr. Scott found a large cargo shuttle and modified it to look like a Federation supplier then loaded it with enough explosives to leave nothing behind. Kirk, through some of the less than appropriate connections he had prior to joining Starfleet, procured false identification as civilians for them all except Spock. Due to his unique physiology and the fact that there were only a handful of Vulcans left, relatively speaking, disguising Spock was untenable. On the way into the facility, through security check, Spock would hide in a cargo container designed by Scotty that shielded any life signs within, and they would use that container to smuggle both Spock and Khan out.

 

The problem was getting Khan out of the holding bay before they got caught. In their zeal to begin capitalizing on the restorative properties of Khan’s blood, Section 31 officials had already brought him out of cryosleep and started siphoning some off.  He was monitored night and day.

 

Bones “borrowed” the necessary drugs and equipment to keep Khan sedated after leaving the med bay, and Spock wrote a program that mimicked Khan’s vitals to keep those watching the monitors believing he was still connected to the equipment even after he was disconnected. Scotty built a device that overwrote the video signal from the camera in Khan’s room that would play the last image of him before they entered the room on a loop. They would not know Khan was missing until it was too late, if all went according to plan.

 

The medical staff physically checked on Khan every hour on the hour. This left Bones less than ten minutes to get him disconnected from the transfusion system and monitors and ensure he remained thoroughly sedated while Spock overwrote the systems to preserve continuity. They then had to smuggle him out in a cargo bin and depart Hangar One before someone realized Khan was gone.

 

They would rendezvous with a civilian shuttle that had transporter capability, and an automation program that Scotty designed would pilot the cargo vessel, steering it clear of civilized areas and blowing it up once the pursuit got intense enough. The Federation would believe the thieves and Khan were dead and there would be no evidence at the scene other than some of Khan’s blood, and DNA procured by Bones that would be identified as multiple John Does.

 

The plan was plausible enough, though risky. Once clear of the fray, Kirk, and Bones would beam to a secret location with an unconscious Khan, and Scotty and Spock would return via the shuttlecraft to Starfleet HQ, hopefully with no one noticing they had been gone. Scotty would wipe the coordinates from the shuttle’s transporter while Spock manipulated the navigation data to look as if they had been on a routine trip to resupply the Enterprise.

 

The first problem was the nosy guard they encountered once they were inside Hangar One, who insisted on inspecting the inside of the cargo container even after scanning it. Spock dealt with him quickly, and they secured him where he wouldn’t be found until he woke much later. Kirk lifted the man’s communicator so he could monitor security as they proceeded down the corridor and into the makeshift med bay.

 

The second problem was the effect Khan was having on Kirk now that the augment’s higher brain function had been restored and he was partially conscious. The closer they grew to Khan, the more disoriented Kirk felt. What had previously been a disembodied voice in his mind was now also emotion that flooded over him, nearly drowning his own feelings out. He needed to touch Khan; to speak to him, reassure him, soothe the pain and anguish that was rolling over him in waves. Kirk had seen Khan’s grief in the brig, but now he felt it too and that quelled any doubt that what he had seen back then was real.

 

In his mind, Kirk said: _I’m coming for you._ That seemed to dampen the anguish, but the urgent need for Khan to be free was not diminished.

 

“Jim, are you alright?” Bones asked quietly.

 

Kirk shook his head. “Yeah. Why?”

 

“You look like you’re about to pass out.”

 

Kirk suddenly realized that he was leaning heavily against the wall, though he still moved forward as if pulled. “It’s… I’m fine.” He gritted his teeth and stood up, moving forward, following the draw, his footsteps quickening. “Come on, time’s running out.”

 

Bones worked quickly upon reaching Khan. Spock’s focus was on the panel before him, his fingers moving so quickly that Kirk almost couldn’t follow them. Scotty watched the security monitors for the medical staff that would soon return.

 

“Ready,” Bones said, looking to Spock for the signal to disconnect Khan. He glanced sideways at Kirk, who stood by Khan’s side, staring down at the augment’s face. What he couldn’t see, because Kirk was on the other side of Khan’s body, was that Kirk was holding Khan’s hand.

 

_I’m here; I’ve got you. We’re getting you out of here._ Kirk thought, wondering if the augment could read his mind because he felt an almost imperceptible flexing of Khan’s fingers, as if the augment was trying to squeeze his hand.

 

Bones frowned at the monitors and Kirk caught the Doctor’s expression out of the corner of his eye.

 

“What is it?” Kirk asked.

 

“It’s  . . . it’s as if he’s fighting,” Bones said. He looked up to Kirk. “It’s like he’s fighting to wake up.”

 

“Is that normal?” Kirk asked.

 

“Since when does normal apply to this one?” Bones asked. “They’ve pumped enough sedative into him to keep an Algorian Mammoth down and still he’s struggling.”

 

“Did you bring enough with you to keep him out?” Kirk asked.

 

“Yeah, that and then some, just in case. We’re going to have to step this up,” he said to Spock. “They’re going to see the change in his vitals and come sooner than we planned.”

 

Kirk nodded and looked down at Khan. He thought he saw a frown on the augment’s features.

 

“Ready to disconnect him, Doctor?” Spock asked.

 

Bones nodded and unplugged Khan as Spock activated the program. The monitors continued to beep and register Khan’s normal vitals without so much as a blip.

 

“We need to get out of here,” Scotty urged. “We’ve got less than twenty minutes left before the detail comes back around and then we’re done for.”

 

Kirk nodded to Bones and they lifted the augment’s body off the bed and gently folded him into the cargo locker. Kirk looked at Spock, who looked at Khan with suspicion.

 

“I calculate the chances of Mr. Singh waking before we reach the shuttle at 48.3 percent,” he said as he climbed into the locker with Khan and accepted the sedatives from the doctor. “If he does and I am unable to administer the sedative in time,” he looked up at Kirk, “I will have to kill him.”

 

Kirk nodded grimly. Spock would not survive another attack by Khan if he fully regained consciousness; he barely survived the last one. And as desperate as Kirk felt to get Khan out of there, he wouldn’t let the augment kill his friend.

 

“Give him the first dose in twenty minutes,” Bones said. “The second one another twenty minutes after that. By then, we should be at the shuttle.”

 

“Understood,” Spock said, then he nodded to Kirk as he closed the cargo locker.

 

* * *

 

Scotty piloted the cargo ship and Bones sat up front with him. Kirk stayed in the cargo area, one hand on the container that contained his best friend and the man that had driven him to risk everything he had. They successfully departed Hangar One and rendezvoused with the shuttlecraft. Scotty executed the autopilot program and they watched the cargo shuttle pull away and head away from the city at full speed.

 

Jim had retained the communicator belonging to the security officer, so he heard when they discovered that Khan was missing and gave chase to the cargo ship. He also heard when it exploded closer to civilization than he would have liked, but apparently there were no civilian casualties. Once they were far enough away from surveillance to stop, Scotty put the coordinates into the transporter and watched his friends and Khan dematerialize.

 

Kirk, Bones, and Khan were beamed to a remote location in the wilds of Alberta, Canada, deep in the woods.

 

“A little help here?” Kirk grunted as he lifted Khan from the bin.

 

Bones grabbed one arm and helped Kirk drag Khan into a rustic cabin that was very much off the grid. No electricity, no communication systems, and no government water source – it was completely independent. It did not exist on any official property records. They would be cut off with the exception of the data pad that Kirk carried that contained an encrypted signal that didn’t allow tracing. He could check in with the crew and assure them that Khan hadn’t murdered him, and he could keep tabs on the hunt for Khan, if the authorities didn’t believe their original scenario.

 

Kirk leaned against the wall, watching as Bones checked Khan’s vitals and administered the final drug to bring him out of his chemically induced coma.

 

“He’ll be awake in about fifteen minutes,” Bones said.

 

“How awake?”

 

“Hard to tell. A normal human would be very weak and groggy. With this freak, who knows?” Bones looked at Kirk. “I’d keep a phaser on him.”

 

“Duly noted, Doctor,” Kirk said. He stepped forward and put his hand on Bones’ shoulder as the doctor stood up. “I owe you.”

 

“You sure as hell do,” Bones grumbled.

 

“Now get out of here. You’re not on leave.”

 

“There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you here with him alone,” Bones said.

 

“Yes, you are,” Kirk said, then he tapped his communicator, placed it on Bones’ shirt, and watched as his old friend was transported back to San Francisco, bitching as he dematerialized.

 

* * *

 

Khan woke, taking a deep breath as his eyes opened. In the place of monitors and medical equipment, he heard birds singing. Instead of the bright white lights of the medical bay burning through his eyelids, he saw the golden brown tone of wood planks on the ceiling.

 

He realized he was no longer physically restrained, and he sat up slowly; the bed creaked as he moved. He was in the bedroom of a twenty-first century dwelling, and the only other being there was James T. Kirk.

 

“I am impressed, Captain,” Khan said. His voice felt odd, the words coming out slower than he intended. He had been drugged, which was no surprise.

 

“Are you?” Kirk asked, the sound of the augment’s voice in his ears rather than just his mind causing his heart to speed up and several emotions to war inside him at once.

 

“You managed to break me out of a secure medical facility.” Khan flexed his fingers and felt a numb tingling in his limbs.

 

“You knew where you were?”

 

“Of course. I was more awake than they realized. I heard everything.” He cocked his head and regarded the haggard Captain carefully. “I tried to kill you, once,” he said slowly sliding his legs over the side of the bed. He could barely feel his feet.

 

“You did, indirectly,” Kirk answered. He sat on a table near the window, his hand resting on a phaser.

 

“Yet, you are here.”

 

“Thanks to you. Well, thanks to your blood, to be more specific.”

 

That explained many things for Khan. He raised his chin and asked: “Where are we? This is not a secure Starfleet facility.”

 

“We’re at a fishing cabin.”

 

“And how many officers surround this cabin?”

 

“Enough to put you down, all armed.”

 

“That is unlikely. You could only use those most loyal to you. No others would risk their careers. And why are there none here in the room with us?”

 

“You have no idea how many loyal officers I have, Khan.” Kirk said, lifting the phaser off the table. “We’re alone because this conversation is for our ears only. Now, you are going to sit there and listen to me, and you’re going to behave yourself, or I will stun your ass into oblivion and drop you right back in that medical bay. You make one move on me, or any of my officers, and I will let those ghouls in Section 31 drain you for an eternity. You hear me?”

 

Khan smiled but it wasn’t a warm smile in the slightest. “I hear you.”

 

“I’ve done quite a bit of research on you, Khan.”

 

“I am flattered.”

 

“Don’t be. According to the records, augments believe that humans are weak and some believe we deserve to be destroyed.”

 

“My experiences with your kind have born your weaknesses out, Captain.”

 

“Is that so? Then why didn’t you destroy all those under your rule in the 20th Century?”

 

“They were no threat.”

 

“No, but they were inferior. Or maybe not. If they were truly inferior you wouldn’t have lost power.”

 

“I did not lose power. I abdicated—”

 

“But the others of your kind did lose power.”

 

“They were outnumbered—”

 

“They were fighting amongst themselves.”

 

“It is true that there were those among us who lacked wisdom,” Khan answered, staring coldly at Kirk.

 

“But you didn’t,” Kirk said. “You were the best of your kind – that’s what the record says. You never initiated a military conflict, but you defended your borders and the people within them. When it was all too far gone, you took your followers and abandoned the planet. You put their safety above your own ambition. Had you all banded together, you could have easily defeated the rebellion.”

 

“What is your point, Captain?”

 

“I suspect that there is more to you than you have led me to believe.”

 

“Oh, I assure you, Captain. You do not know me at all.”

 

Kirk smiled. “I’m banking on that.”

 

With the phaser, he motioned toward a glass that sat on the bedside table. “Drink that.”

 

Khan picked it up and drained the glass dry. He felt his limbs go heavy. He suspected it was a sedative, one designed to make him weak but not render him unconscious immediately. As his hand flopped to the bed beside him he smiled. “You do not have armed security officers to protect you.”

 

“Nope.”

 

“It is just you and I.”

 

“Yep. I thought it best that we were alone when I told you.”

 

Khan cocked his head and raised it to look at the Captain who now stood over him.

 

“Told me what?” he asked, still wearing that cold smile.

 

“That your crew is alive, and I know where they are.”

 

The smile faded from Khan’s face. “You lie.”

 

“Well, yes. I do from time to time, but I’m not lying about that.”

 

“I will require proof.”

 

“I thought you might,” Kirk said. He held up his data pad and showed Khan the security footage that Scotty had hacked into. There on the screen were sixty-three cryotubes and ten armed security officers guarding them.

 

Khan looked stunned. “They are alive,” he said softly. “The torpedoes…”

 

“Spock lies too, by omission anyway. He is half human, after all. He had their bodies removed before allowing you to beam the torpedoes off of the Enterprise. As they detonated, your crew was safe aboard my ship.”

 

“They are alive,” Khan repeated.

 

“Yes. And I intend to see they stay that way,” Kirk answered. “We are not murderers.”

 

“And in return?” Khan glared up at him.

 

“Once the dust has settled from our little prison break, we will figure out how to break them out and get you all out of here.”

 

“What do you ask for in return?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

Khan, for the first time in Kirk’s estimation, was confounded.

 

“Why would you do such a thing after everything I have done? You swore to make me answer for my crimes.”

 

Kirk sighed. “I understand now that you will never stand trial. If you are to stay here, then you will always be…”

 

“A slave?” Khan asked, his voice laden with hate.

 

“Yes.”

 

“So you are willing to set me free then, let me go after I have murdered thousands of innocent civilians?”

 

“I am. This has to end. Revenge never tastes sweet, no matter what they say.”

 

“How do you know I will not continue my crusade?”

 

“I guess I don’t. But you said that all you wanted was your people. I can give that to you. I can give you your freedom.” Khan frowned and Kirk smiled. For once, he had the upper hand. “You’re confused. You don’t understand why I would do this.”

 

Khan looked at Kirk with suspicion.

 

“I’m doing this because I believe you _are_ better, as you said. Better than me, better than Starfleet, better than all of us. I believe that the rage and hatred you have shown us since you were woken was truly a response to your circumstances. And well, your genetics.”

 

“Meaning?”

 

“There is a defect in your DNA sequencing that causes the tendency for extreme violence.” Kirk bent over and placed his hands on his knees and looked deep into Khan’s eyes. “If someone held my crew captive, I would do anything to save them, and I’d get dammed violent if I had to. So in that way, you were right. You and I are not so different.” Kirk stood up again.  “I believe that you can move past your impulse to kill. I believe you can truly be better than all of us, and my crew and I can help you.”

 

“And by helping me, you help yourself,” Khan said.

 

“What do you mean?” Kirk asked.

 

“Save me, save my people, prove you are a hero and regain your place amongst Starfleet command.”

 

“Hardly,” Kirk turned and looked out the window.

 

“Why?”

 

“I broke you out of that holding facility. Section 31 operates with impunity at the highest levels of Starfleet Command. I have stolen something that belongs to them. They won’t even bother to court martial me. They’ll just arrange for an accident.”

 

“Then why do it?”

 

“Because you love your crew and you have been dealt a shitty hand. You can love, Khan. That is a very human emotion. All this time your DNA has gotten in its way.” Kirk looked back at Khan. “That and I didn’t join Starfleet to cover up unethical and inhumane experimentation.”

 

“You do have a conscience.”

 

“Yeah, it appears I do.” He looked thoughtfully at Khan. “Admiral Marcus was batshit crazy, but he was right. War is coming. You told me that you were created to lead people to peace in a time of war. I’m betting that you could do just that, and we just might need your help, someday.”

 

Khan’s eyes slid closed at last as the drug permeated his system. Kirk cradled Khan’s head in his hand, guiding the augment to lie down on his side.

 

“Sweet dreams, Khan,” he said, and then he left Khan sleeping in his bed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

 

Kirk didn’t sleep that night. He could be wrong, so very wrong about all of this. Khan could kill him in an instant. Khan’s defective DNA, as Bones had called it, could override everything else and he could end up with a crushed skull for his trouble. If he was lucky, the augment would just disarm him and shoot him and make it quick.

 

Khan could take back his crew now, and then finish off the Federation and God knows what else and the deaths of all of those people would rest on his head.

 

Or, Khan could prove him right. Khan could prove that he was more than his DNA. That he truly was better at everything, even being human.

 

Kirk sat in an old overstuffed chair, sipping coffee and watching the sunrise over the mountains. He heard the floorboards creak upstairs, then heard the stairs groaning in like complaint as Khan descended. ‘Well, Jim,’ he thought. ‘This might be your last sunrise.’

 

“Mornin’,” he said as Khan entered the room. “There’s breakfast on the stove, and fresh coffee, if you drink it.”

 

Khan stared at Kirk in disbelief. The man did at least have the sense to keep the phaser on his lap.

 

“Planning to put me down, Captain?” He asked, moving to stand in front of Kirk with his back turned, stretching his arms over his head and bending from side to side, stretching out his muscles that had grown tired with disuse. He caught the Captain’s reflection in the mirror, and saw how Kirk’s eyes flicked to where his shirt rode up exposing part of his midsection. He could feel the confusion and indecision in Kirk’s mind like it radiated off him.

 

“Hoping I don’t have to,” Kirk answered, licking his lips. Why was his mouth dry all of the sudden?

 

“I am still unclear as to why you are doing this,” Khan said as he walked to the screen door and looked outside, placing his hands on the doorframe and leaning into it, stretching his chest and shoulders and enjoying the fresh spark of confusion it caused in Kirk. He knew what the man felt, even if Kirk didn’t know it himself. And he knew exactly what caused it and that gave him the upper hand.

 

“Because I don’t believe that human beings, augmented or not, should be used as pawns or lab rats. You cannot help the way you were born, Khan.” God his mouth was dry. He took a sip of his coffee.

 

Khan turned and looked at Kirk. “Meaning?”

 

“You were designed to be perfect, but your designers were themselves imperfect. They made you stronger, faster, and more intelligent, with bodies that healed at five times the normal rate. Your designers built you this way, but did nothing to repair what kept you from being truly human. The records said that they didn’t know how to. But at the core of your DNA, underneath all of that genetic engineering you _are_ in fact, human.”

 

“You have clearly spent some time thinking about this,” Khan said.

 

“Yeah, I have,” Kirk answered.

 

“What if you are wrong, Captain? What then?”

 

“Then, we have a problem,” Kirk said flatly. “But I don’t think we do.”

 

Khan eyed the Captain suspiciously. “I have lied to you before.”

 

“Yep, you have.”

 

“You have no reason to trust me.”

 

“Not one.”

 

“Yet you are alone with me with a phaser set to stun. You’ve used that on me before. Have you forgotten how it turned out?”

 

“It would be hard to forget.” Kirk said as he looked up at Khan. “I am alone with you because I know I am right . . . about this, anyway.”

 

“You defy explanation, James Kirk.”

 

Kirk laughed at that. “Spock would agree.”

 

“You truly intend to reunite me with my crew.”

 

“I will try my damnedest.” Kirk rose from his chair, tucking the phaser in his belt. “I would like to believe that it is what you would do for me if our positions were reversed.” He paused on his way to the kitchen. “Actually, you did return me to my crew.”

 

“With the intent of killing you all,” Khan reminded him.

 

“Well, there is that.” Kirk walked into the kitchen. “Hungry?” he called.

 

Khan was, in fact, starving. He followed Kirk into the kitchen then joined him at the table for breakfast.

 

* * *

 

It had been four days. Often they sat in the same room without speaking, and sometimes they discussed various options in terms of freeing his crew. Khan would stare at the image on the data pad and Kirk often found it heartbreaking to watch. Khan’s emotions were walled off now, as were his thoughts, but Kirk didn’t need to have a telepathic or empathic connection to know what the augment was feeling. He could read it in his eyes.

 

Other times, Kirk would go about his business, reading, cleaning a gun, carving small pieces of wood with a knife, and sitting still as stone, Khan would watch him perform mundane tasks. Khan studied him, observed the sense of calm that these small actions provided the Captain and he wondered what it must be like to feel calm. He didn’t know if he ever had felt peace. He wasn’t sure if that kind of peace and satisfaction was a sign of weakness and inferiority, or if it was truly desirable.

 

Even then in those quiet moments, there was something stirring inside him, just under his skin. It threatened to flare when he thought of Starfleet, of what Marcus and Section 31 had done and put him through. It was as much an exercise in intellectual curiosity as anything – he wanted to see just how much control he really had over his “defective,” as Kirk had called it, DNA.

 

On a balmy morning they walked through the woods, toward the river, sticking to the cover of the trees. Kirk carried a fishing pole and a small basket and walked ahead of Khan, leading the way. He still carried the phaser, but he assured Khan it wasn’t to use on him.

 

“I might need it for defense, if anyone finds us,” Kirk said.

 

“I believe I am a far deadlier means of defense than a phaser set to stun,” Khan replied.

 

Kirk smirked at that. “Yeah, well, you’re turning over a new leaf, remember?”

 

Kirk detailed for Khan the methods they used to break him out, he told him of dying in the warp chamber and waking up after Bones used Khan’s blood to bring him back to life.

 

Khan didn’t say much, he merely listened and tried to wrap his head around why someone to whom he had shown such cruelty would show him such kindness in return. It did not make sense. He tried to think of any angle in which Kirk’s actions gave him the advantage. His experiences and his encoding told him it was weakness, but something inside him began to suspect that it was not.

 

It was also obvious to him that select members of Kirk’s crew aided the Captain in liberating him from the clutches of Section 31 – he had heard them even while sedated. His cruelty had not been limited to just James Kirk. He had tried to kill everyone on board the Enterprise, and still they helped to save him. Only a good Captain inspired that kind of loyalty.

 

He had pieced together from what Kirk was saying about how he felt physically after the transfusion that Kirk heard him when he was in cryosleep. Khan’s DNA was integrating with Kirk’s own. It was Kirk’s voice he had heard in sleep, Kirk’s presence that he felt once he was woken. Kirk’s story confirmed what Khan suspected all along.

 

“You heard me,” he interrupted Kirk mid-sentence. “When I was in cryosleep. You heard me speak to you.”

 

Kirk stopped dead in his tracks, so Khan knew he was right.

 

“I thought I was losing my mind,” Kirk said. He looked up through the trees. “Did you know it was me?”

 

“I wasn’t certain,” Khan responded. “I only felt a presence. I asked you to kill me.”

 

“Jesus!” Kirk spun around. “Why did you do that? After everything you did, after how hard you fought to survive, to make Starfleet pay, why did you want to die?”

 

“I had nothing left to live for,” Khan said matter-of-factly. “I believed my crew dead. Starfleet had defeated me, captured me, and enslaved me, again. Death was better than imprisonment.”

 

“And now?”

 

“Now, I have reason to live,” Khan answered. What he didn’t say was: ‘because of you.’

 

“Come on,” Kirk said. “We need to get down to the river before it gets too hot. The fish bite best in the mornings and we’re going to need something for dinner.”

 

Khan was changing, in small ways. He could feel it. Time alone with this human was changing him. It remained to be seen whether or not it was for the better.

 

* * *

 

The sun was climbing higher in the sky and the glare off the water was causing Kirk to squint. If it weren’t for the fact that he was crotch deep in ice-cold water, he would be sweating his balls off.

 

Khan stood on the shore, hidden inside the tree line, his eyes scanning the surroundings. If someone found both of them there, he was in no danger of dying – he was far too valuable alive. Kirk on the other hand: Khan knew they’d drop the man where he stood without a second thought. Alone, the Captain was only doing what he told Starfleet he would be doing, fishing. As long as they were not seen together there was a chance this would work, but he knew the percentages were against that result. Khan watched as Kirk flicked his wrist, sending the line out into the stream. Then, he heard something.

 

Within minutes Kirk had a fish. He began reeling it in when he felt Khan’s hand on the back of his neck.

 

How the fuck had he come up behind him in the water so silently?

 

“Someone is coming,” Khan said quietly into Kirk’s ear.

 

“Shit.”

 

“You need to come with me, now, or you are a dead man, again.”

 

Kirk pulled the fish off the line as quickly as he could without fumbling and dropping it. He tossed it back into the river and turned around making for the shore as fast as possible. He shed his waders and gathered his gear with the intent of stashing it in the bushes. He did not want to leave an obvious sign of where they had been in case Khan’s senses were off.

 

Without warning Khan grabbed his wrist, pulling him close and turning as the rocks on the shoreline exploded from a phaser blast. Khan shielded him from the debris that flew through the air, though a single piece caught Kirk on the cheekbone, breaking the skin. They bolted for the cover of the trees, Khan dragging Kirk into the woods by the wrist.

 

He followed Khan at a run, leaping fallen branches and ducking low ones. It didn’t occur to him until they stopped running that he had nearly matched pace with the augment. That should not have been possible.

 

“Your weapon,” Khan said.

 

Kirk gave Khan the phaser without even questioning him, which was the first clue he should have had that something in his mind wasn’t right. But then, the augment was twice as good a shot as he was. He wiped at the blood that ran down his face as Khan changed the setting to kill. “Who is shooting at us?”

 

“Who do you think?” Khan said, scanning the woods.

 

“You’re bleeding,” Kirk said.

 

“I will be fine,” Khan answered evenly.

 

“I can’t let you kill—”

 

“Be quiet,” Khan admonished.

 

He turned quickly and fired over Kirk’s shoulder, and Kirk just barely got to Khan’s arm in time. The blast went wide of its target, and a Starfleet officer owed James Kirk a debt. Though that same man almost blew his head off. The tree they were standing by exploded from the phaser blast.

 

Khan head-butted Kirk so hard that he saw stars. Kirk heard phaser fire as he began to black out. Khan then hoisted the unconscious Kirk over his shoulder.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

 

Kirk woke up with a groan and rubbed his forehead. The knot wasn’t as big as he thought it would be. Something was digging into his back and he sat up. They were inside a small cave and Khan was crouched at the entrance.

 

“Where the fuck—”

 

“Silence,” Khan hissed.

 

“You’re really starting to piss me off,” Kirk grumbled in a hoarse whisper.

 

As he looked around, he noticed that it was nearly dark outside. So why could he still see? It was difficult to decipher more than shadow and the outlines of shapes, but he could see. In a cave. In the dark.

 

“Holy shit,” he whispered to himself, moving his fingers in front of his face.

 

He had felt stronger since he woke up. Bones told him that he recovered from death by radiation faster than anyone would have thought possible – particularly since it should have been impossible. He had thought briefly about how fast he had just run, how he had kept up with Khan, albeit with extreme effort. Now he could see in the dark. And the voice in his mind was gone, and he was sleeping. That feeling of being haunted and torn apart had disappeared and he felt whole and strong and right. He swallowed as he looked at Khan.

 

It occurred to him that Khan could have left him behind, but he didn’t. They were clearly cornered, and Khan didn’t need any help defending himself. In fact, being unconscious, he must have slowed Khan down a bit. Had he been left behind, he would be dead. It seemed as if he had been right about the augment all along.

 

_“Silence,”_ Khan said.

 

Only, he didn’t really say anything out loud, did he?

 

_“They are searching the woods near the cabin. We cannot go back there.”_

 

Kirk closed his eyes and focused on directing his thoughts at Khan. It probably wouldn’t work….

 

_“Twenty,”_ came the reply in his mind. _“There are twenty and they are not in uniform. This is a black ops mission.”_

 

“Oh, my God,” Kirk whispered.

 

_“I said, SHUT UP,”_ came Khan’s unspoken reply.

 

_“I can hear your thoughts and you can hear mine!”_ was Kirk’s unspoken answer.

 

_“And the cut on your cheek is healed,”_ Khan pointed out silently. _“It is my DNA in your blood. It is changing you.”_

 

Kirk felt his face. The cut was indeed completely healed. _“Is this good? It feels good,”_ Kirk thought to Khan.

 

_“It is an infinite improvement,”_ Khan thought back.

 

Kirk made a snarky face behind Khan’s back. Khan slowly looked over his shoulder.

 

_“Don’t tell me, I’m going to grow eyes in the back of my head now,”_ he thought to Khan.  


_“Do you see any in mine?”_

 

_“Maybe they’re invisible, augmented eyes.”_

 

Khan just glowered at him.

 

_“Yeah, well, we could use a little levity at this point.”_ Kirk gained his feet and clambered over to where Khan was crouched. He couldn’t stand up in this low-walled cave.

 

_“You are enjoying this,”_ Khan thought.

 

_“A little,”_ Kirk replied and Khan smirked. _“It has been too quiet lately.”_ There was blood staining Khan’s shirt. _“You’re wounded.”_

_“I’ll be fine.”_

_“They’re going to find us if we stay here.”_

 

_“You are correct about that,”_ Khan answered.

 

Without warning, Khan’s hands were around Kirk’s throat. Kirk tried to fight him off, but even with his increased strength, he couldn’t. His eyes slowly rolled back in his head as he passed out again.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

When he woke, Kirk saw the night sky passing overhead. He blinked and groaned as he sat up. He had a massive headache and felt like he had the hangover of ten lifetimes. The knot on his head from the head butt was gone, however.

 

“You have got to stop doing that,” he grumbled.

 

“It is more efficient than arguing with you,” Khan answered.

 

They were on the back of an open bed cargo truck, rolling down the highway and music blared loud out of the cab windows. Khan sat next to him, wrapped in a long black coat, the hood over his head.

 

“How did we get here?”

 

“I carried you. This truck was stopped for refueling, I took the opportunity to hitch a ride without the driver’s knowledge.”

 

Kirk didn’t have to ask what happened back at the cabin. Khan wasn’t wearing the same clothes he had on before. He was wearing what one of their hunters had been wearing, and he thought he could see dried blood underneath Khan’s fingernails.

 

“They’re all dead, aren’t they?” he asked. The question was rhetorical.

 

Khan answered it anyway. “Yes. It was . . . necessary.”

 

“You had to kill them?” he asked, anger mounting.

 

Khan’s head snapped up and he glared at Kirk. “Would you rather be dead? Would you rather have me back where I was? Would you rather all this be for nothing?”

 

Kirk growled and punched the sack of potatoes next to him. “You just can’t stop yourself, can you?”

 

“No,” Khan responded. “I cannot stop protecting myself, and you.”

 

The last two words fell like a stone.

 

“I won’t stop killing those who mean me harm. As your Vulcan would say, it is logical.”

 

Kirk grabbed at his own hair in frustration, and then he ran his hands through it, bringing his arms to rest on his bent knees.

 

“They will triple their search parties now. I mean, I’m clearly found out and you just keep upping the body count.” His eyes widened. “My crew…”

 

“They all have irrefutable alibis,” Khan responded. “Their whereabouts are accounted for during the time of the theft. They will be watched and their communications monitored, but they will not come to harm.”

 

“How do you know this?”

 

“I have been in communication with them.” He tossed the data pad to Kirk. “I retrieved it from the cabin after I burned the bodies. The encryption is unbreakable, now.”

 

“You BURNED the bodies?” Kirk shouted.

 

“I could not risk leaving DNA behind. I burned the cabin as well.”

 

“Our DNA wasn’t on their bodies.”

 

“Mine was. I have arranged for a rendezvous with your doctor in a small town just up the road.”

 

Kirk growled, then asked: “How did you get Bones to agree to meet you without knowing if I’m still alive?”

 

“I provided proof that you were still alive via your data pad. I did, of course, tell him that you were injured in a firefight. I then told the good doctor I would agree to undergo his procedure.”

 

“His what?”

 

“He has isolated the gene that makes me violent. He thinks he can correct it. I promised him I would allow him to complete the procedure.”

 

“How did you know he found it?”

 

“I hacked his medical files.”

 

“And you will do it?”

 

“Once there is no longer any threat. We do not know how the doctor’s procedure will affect me and I cannot afford to be compromised as long as we are hunted and my crew is captive. Once my people and I are safe, I will submit. If it is successful on me, then those of my people who carry the same defective gene will submit as well. Despite what you may believe, we do not wish to be monsters, and…”

 

“And what?”

 

“I will be a slave to nothing, including my own DNA.”

 

Kirk had no response. He wanted to believe that Khan was telling the truth, but it seemed too soon for him to come to this realization on his own, no matter how smart he was.

 

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you right off the bat.”

 

“Understandable,” Khan said, then he looked at Kirk and communicated telepathically: _But you want to._

 

Kirk swallowed. It was true, he did. “How does this work?” he asked.

 

“What?”

 

“The telepathic thing.”

 

“If you direct your thoughts at me I can hear them, and you can hear thoughts I direct at you. It is a psychic link formed because of shared DNA. I share this link with my crew, or at least I did before I was woken.”

 

“And now?”

 

“I cannot hear them, nor can they hear me. Once they awake and we are on the same psychic plane, that will change.”

 

“But, when you were in cryosleep, I heard you and you heard me, and I was awake.”

 

Khan frowned. “Yes. I can only hypothesize that is due to the amount of my DNA in you. My crew and I share one strand, the rest of their biology is unique. You and I share twice that. More of my DNA was required to heal you than was required to augment them. Less would not have brought you back.”

 

“I was really dead.”

 

“Yes, you were. Your entire cellular structure was destroyed by radiation. In order for it to repair itself, a substantial amount of a specific part of my DNA was required.”

 

“How do you know . . . wait. Let me guess. You hacked Bones’ records.”

 

“Of course,” Khan answered.

 

“Of course,” Kirk rejoined. “Can you read my mind?”  


“Yes, but not because of our shared DNA.”

 

“Then why?”

 

Khan smirked. “You are not nearly as intelligent as you think you are.”

 

Kirk shook his head. “What the fuck am I doing?”

 

Khan looked at Kirk with a bemused expression. “Having second thoughts, Captain?”

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

It was nearing dawn when the truck pulled off the highway and into a small logging town in northwest Alberta. It was little more than a weigh station, with two motels, a bar and a fueling station. Kirk and Khan slipped off the back of the truck and made their way across the highway into the dark.

 

They climbed a hill and moved into the woods. Khan found a hollowed out tree that fit them both and had a view of the road and approaching path, if even it was close quarters. They hunkered down as it started to rain; Khan used his over-large coat to cover their heads.

 

Kirk sat with his knees pulled to his chest and his back resting against the hollowed out tree. He should be colder than he was, but he supposed that was another byproduct of Khan’s blood. Either that or it was the heat that radiated off Khan, which under other circumstances would have lured Kirk into leaning into it. The augment sat beside him, his eyes trained on the dark forest and the road beyond, his face expressionless.

 

“What are we doing?” Kirk asked.

 

“Waiting,” Khan answered.

 

“For?”

 

Khan turned his head and looked at the man. “Word from Doctor McCoy.”  He took a deep breath and sighed as if explaining was a gross inconvenience. “We will have to alter our appearance. Starfleet has obviously discovered that I am missing and that you are to blame. They will raise surveillance levels and we cannot go near the cities until our appearance is altered enough that we do not trigger facial recognition programs. They will also move my crew, if they have not done so already.”

 

“We’ve got that covered,” Kirk said.  


“How?”

 

He smiled. It was nice to get one over on Khan every once in a while. “We’ve got a . . . woman on the inside.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Carol Marcus. She’s installed undetectable tracking devices. We’ll know where your crew ends up.” He felt a tremor course through him as Khan’s arm lowered, brushing his shoulder.

 

Khan spoke softly, “Why would she help me? I hurt her. I murdered her father.”

 

“She’s helping because I asked her to, because she recognizes that what her father did was wrong.”

 

Khan frowned and Kirk twisted slightly to look the augment in the eye. “You don’t understand this, do you?”

 

“I understand that kindness is a show of weakness.”

 

“Is it? Really?” Kirk asked. Khan was staring straight ahead, but Kirk could see by the softening in his gaze that Khan doubted what he said was true. The augment didn’t answer him, so Kirk changed the subject. “So what do we do in the meantime? Until our appearance is altered.”

 

“We stay away from civilization. After our appearance is altered, you will arrange for false identification in the event that we are intercepted. Your Chief Engineer is procuring a ship and a base of operations, and your Vulcan is writing a data corruption package that will damage records pertaining to our identities and cover any data trail we may leave.”

 

“And you?”

 

“Once appropriately disguised, I will procure weapons.” Khan sensed Kirk’s apprehension. “Surely you knew, Captain, that once you embarked upon this road there would be no return to your former life. We will encounter resistance when we liberate my people.”

 

“Yeah, I just…” Kirk ran a hand down the back of his neck. “I’m worried about my crew. I’m not sure they signed up for all of this.”

 

“They will not be able to return to their lives or their careers in Starfleet if any connection is made.”

 

“I know.”

 

“And it is doubtful we can accomplish this without their help.”

 

“I know.”

 

“None of them have more than familial ties. There are no children nor spouses nor lovers with the exception of Commander Spock and your Lieutenant Uhura, and they will be together.”

 

“Wait. How did you know about Uhura and Spock?”

 

“It was not difficult to discern once she arrived upon the refuse barge and attempted to render me unconscious with her phaser. I saw the look in her eyes as I was beating her lover to death.”

 

Kirk clenched his jaw. Spock had never told him the extent of the violence of that encounter and the thought of it sparked hot rage in his gut. It was a reminder of what Khan was capable of.

 

“Ah, you are angry at me now,” Khan crooned. “Now you are thinking that perhaps it would have been better to kill me.”

 

“Shut up,” Kirk growled.

 

“But you cannot, not now.”

 

“I said shut up,” Kirk warned.

 

“There is a bond between us now, Kirk. I am now part of you. Only death can break it and I doubt you have the resolve to kill me, not to mention the ability. If this angers you, then thank your good doctor. It is he who bound us together.”

 

“You’re a real charmer, you know that?”

 

Khan smiled darkly. “You have no idea.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

 

McCoy found an abandoned house five miles outside of town, and Kirk and Khan joined him upon receiving the message. Per Khan’s instructions, McCoy had also disguised himself and procured false identification through friends of Mr. Scott.

 

Kirk looked in the mirror and barely recognized himself. His altered appearance was just enough to keep him from being flagged by facial recognition without being permanent. His hair was now black as pitch and shoulder length, and he sported a black goatee and brown contacts. He also had several tattoos, pierced ears, and was dressed in worn leather and denim.

 

Khan’s reflection appeared in the mirror, over Kirk’s shoulder. The augment’s hair was longer but not as long as his own, tossed and curly and a pale red in color. He sported light facial hair, no more than a shadow, and wore deep hazel contact lenses. He was dressed in khaki colored trousers, a soft, pale denim shirt, and boots. He wore a thin, woven necklace around his pale throat. His appearance was in stark contrast to his typical severe military look. He seemed softer, gentler, more . . . human.

 

Kirk swallowed as he looked at Khan, and for a moment he thought he saw the augment smile genuinely, but then Khan turned and walked away.

 

“I would feel a lot better if Khan would undergo the procedure now,” Bones said, leaning against the doorway. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone with him.”

 

“He’s had days to kill me if he wanted to,” Kirk answered, turning away from the mirror as he looked at his friend.

 

“He’s got a reason not to,” Bones said. “What’s to stop him once he has what he wants?”

 

“Nothing,” Kirk answered. “But he won’t.”

 

“I wish I had your faith in him. Maybe he’s been on good behavior here, Jim. But he’s got a long history of homicidal behavior.”

 

“My homicidal behavior is the reason your Captain is standing here speaking to you now, Doctor McCoy,” Khan rejoined as he entered the room. “I was the only thing standing between him and a kill squad back in the mountains. I could have left him to them and run. If you believe that I cannot free my crew without him, you are mistaken.”

 

“And why this sudden generosity of spirit?”

 

“If your Captain is inclined to help me right this wrong, why should I not take advantage?”

 

“That’s what I’m afraid of. You taking advantage.”

 

“I’m not a kid, Bones,” Kirk protested.

 

Khan smiled darkly as he sat on a ratted sofa. “You have been gone for sometime, Dr. McCoy. Suspicions will be roused by your absence.”

 

“Bones, he’s right. You’ve got to get back. You can’t be found here with us.” Kirk took McCoy’s arm and led him from the room. “I’ll be fine. I can look out for myself.”

 

“What’s the next move?”

 

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll be in touch.”

 

“Jim… are you sure about this?”

 

Kirk smiled tightly. “As sure as I have ever been about anything in my life.”

 

Bones nodded and squeezed Kirk’s shoulder, then he left his friend alone with a murderer.

 

* * *

 

 

“$4,000. No more,” Khan said.

 

The arms trader he was bartering with was easily twice his size and had the look of a man who had seen the inside of more than one prison cell. The fact that they were in an abandoned warehouse in a derelict part of town with no witnesses to place them there didn’t make him feel any better.

 

Kirk kept his eyes on the man’s gang. There were six others, all armed and all looked entirely comfortable with killing them where they stood. He and Khan, in contrast, weren’t armed.

 

“These weapons are worth twice that.” The man waved Khan off. “You’re wasting my time.”

 

“And you’re a liar,” Khan said calmly. “A liar who is wasting _my_ time.”

 

“You should watch yourself, pretty boy. I’ve killed men for less.”

 

Khan flashed a dark smile. “Really? What’s stopping you now? Maybe you aren’t sure you can do it?”

 

“Oh, I can do it. I’ve killed badder men than you.”

 

“Perhaps you lack resolve.”

 

“You calling me a coward?” the man said, leaning in.

 

Kirk could almost feel Khan’s muscles twitching in anticipation of a fight; he too was ready, but he was trying like hell to look cool. _Let’s just slow down a little,_ he thought to Khan.

 

“Look in my eyes and tell me if I look afraid,” Khan said, ignoring Kirk’s plea and stepping into the man’s space. “Either we have a deal or…” he glanced at Kirk, “… or you and your friends die, right here, right now. You can walk out of here $4000 richer or you can not walk out of here at all.”

 

The man laughed huskily. “You’ve got balls, pretty boy. I like that.”

 

“We have a deal then?”

 

The man grinned. Khan curled his lip at the man’s rank teeth.

 

“Tom over there,” he pointed to a behemoth of a man with multiple piercings and tattoos who was currently eying Kirk in a way that made Khan’s blood boil, “he likes hurting pretty boys. He likes to hurt them in really . . . intimate ways. I think he’s just taken a liking to your friend there. He probably likes you too.”

 

Tom stepped closer to Kirk. Khan was impressed by the way the Captain stood his ground and buried his fear, but Khan could feel it, prickling just under his skin and it only served to fuel his barely contained rage.

 

“That is interesting, but not an answer to my question,” Khan said, managing to keep his voice even. “Do we have a deal?”

 

“Maybe I will just take your $4000 and give you and your little friend to Tom.”

 

The room echoed with the sound of weapons being unlocked.

 

Khan looked at Kirk and rolled his eyes.

 

“Oh, shit,” Kirk murmured.

 

Then all hell broke loose.

 

Kirk took out one guy before Tom had him by the throat. He struggled for breath as he punched the man’s face, his knuckles splitting on his teeth. He kicked out hard, connecting with Tom’s groin but the brute wore a metal cup. As the world began to grow white around the edges and he fought to breathe, he heard another gunshot, then a man screaming. Kirk wondered what was happening to Khan and what might be about to happen to him. It registered somewhere in his increasingly foggy brain that he was only still alive because Khan’s blood had made him faster and stronger, but not quite strong enough. He also knew in a few minutes he might be wishing he didn’t have it at all.

 

Suddenly, Tom growled in pain as his head jerked back and Kirk heard something snap loudly. Kirk was released and he slid down the post gasping for air. When he raised his head he saw Tom on his knees, head drawn back and held there by Khan’s fist. Khan was bathed in blood, it was spattered on his face and arms and clothing. He held a broad blade in his hand and he leaned down to speak in Tom’s ear.   


“That pretty boy is mine, and if you have seriously hurt him,” he growled, “you are going to die _very_ slowly and _very_ painfully.” He looked at Kirk. “Are you alright?” Kirk nodded in an unspoken confirmation. “Today is your lucky day,” he said to Tom, and then he cut the man’s throat.

 

Kirk held up his hands as he was sprayed with the man’s blood. He heard the blade clatter to the floor then he was hauled to his feet.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

Kirk nodded. “Yes. I told you . . . You’ve been shot.” Khan was bleeding from his left shoulder.

 

“I’ll be fine.” Khan held Kirk’s face in his hands and Kirk watched the augment’s eyes scanning his face and body, looking for sign of serious injury. “Can you walk?”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Kirk took one step and his knees buckled.

 

Khan caught him up in his arms and slung one of Kirk’s arms over his shoulder. “Time to go.”

 

Kirk leaned his head back against the seat of the van after using a rag to wipe the blood from his face. He heard the cargo door slam shut and opened his eyes to find Khan walking back toward the warehouse. The augment stopped short then threw something in the direction of the building, then walked back toward the van.

 

“Was that an explosive?”

 

“Yes. They’re all dead anyway, we must cover our tracks.”

 

Kirk rubbed his face as Khan started the van and pulled away in haste. He heard the explosion and saw the fireball in the side view mirror. “One man wrecking machine,” he murmured.

 

“I can be, yes.” Khan answered.

 

“How many people do you think you’ve killed in your lifetime?” he asked, not bothering to hide the exasperation in his voice.

 

“Directly or indirectly? Hundreds of thousands in total, I imagine.”

 

“You don’t seem too torn up about it.”

 

“About killing men like that? Absolutely not. They are animals . . . worse than animals.”

 

“What about all the people who died when you bombed the archive? Or when you crashed the Vengeance into downtown San Francisco? Were they all bad people?”

 

“Casualties of war,” Khan answered, then he cast a look at Kirk. “You must stop operating on the premise that I have a conscience.”

 

“What was it that finally broke you, Khan? What did Marcus do to you?”

 

“I told you, he tortured my people.”

 

Kirk sat forward and turned to face Khan. “But there’s more to it than that. There were eighty-four cryotubes on the Botany Bay, but only sixty-three were recovered with living crewmembers. He tortured ten members of your crew before you gave in.”

 

Khan stared ahead. If Kirk didn’t know better, he’d say the augment was emotionless. But he did know better. He could almost feel the grief radiating off him in waves.

 

“It was the children,” Khan said, his voice quiet and rough. “He woke two children, Sasha and Alexander.”

 

“Marcus tortured children?” Kirk asked. He knew Marcus was a madman, but he never would have believed he was also a monster.

 

“He threatened to. That is when I gave in and told him I would do anything he asked if he swore to leave the children alone.” He pulled over and stopped the van in an alleyway. There were sirens in the distance. “Do you see now, Kirk? Do you see why I did what I did? I had to make him pay. I had to make them all pay.”

 

“But innocent men and women died when you bombed that archive and when you crashed that ship into the city; men and women that had nothing to do with Marcus’s crimes. My crew would have helped your people, we never would have—”

 

“Where is my crew now, Kirk? Who has possession of them? Did you stop it? Have you helped them?” There were unshed tears in Khan’s eyes. “What do you think is about to happen to them? Do you think the children will be spared?”

 

Kirk was struck mute. He had no answer for Khan’s questions. “I swear to you, we will make this right.” He put his hand on Khan’s arm. “I will die before I see any further harm come to them.”

 

The tears finally spilled from Khan’s eyes as he stared at the man. Could he believe Kirk? Could he trust him when he had never been able to trust a human in his life? He backed the van out of the alleyway and began driving.

 

Neither man said a word for the rest of the journey.

 

* * *

 

 

Kirk stood under the spray of hot water. It ran down his body in pink rivulets, pooling and swirling around his feet before traveling down the drain. Some of the blood was his, but most of it wasn’t. Already the bruises were healing and the cuts were closing. Most of the pain was gone, though he did feel a diffuse ache spreading through him and his throat still hurt from the stranglehold he’d been in.

 

They left the warehouse alive with their $4000 and a cache of weapons concealed in their van, but he was still shaking. If Khan had been a little slower, if he hadn’t survived…

 

He closed his eyes and turned his face into the spray, Khan’s words echoing in his mind: _That pretty boy is mine..._

 

There was a part of him, deep inside, that sparked with heat when he remembered how that sounded coming from Khan. Once again, Khan could have left him and escaped with the weapons while Tom was having his fun, but he didn’t. Khan killed the man who was hurting him in a particularly intimate way.

 

“You are wondering why I did what I did.”

 

Kirk turned to find Khan watching him. Was the augment was reading his thoughts? He wiped the water from his eyes. “Are you reading my mind?” he asked, his voice rough from being choked.

 

“No,” Khan answered. “But I do not have to read your mind to imagine what you are thinking now. You may have been stunned, but you were alert enough to hear what I said to him.”

 

“I know why you killed him, but why did you kill him like that? You could have shot the guy; there were enough guns around. But you made him kneel; you spoke to him before cutting his throat. Why?”

 

“I killed him that way because I could and I wanted to,” Khan said.

 

“I don’t understand. And why did you say I was yours? What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

Khan didn’t answer for a moment, he merely looked at Kirk, and then he stripped off his soiled clothes and stepped into the shower with him. Kirk moved over, giving Khan as wide a berth as possible in the confines of the shower stall. It suddenly struck him that he wasn’t the least bit afraid of the augment, nor was he embarrassed by their mutual nudity.

 

“I wanted to because he was a rapist and a torturer,” Khan replied evenly. “He was a pig and didn’t deserve to live. He was exemplary of what is wrong with the human race.”

 

“Says the mass murderer.”

 

Khan smiled and slicked his wet hair from his face. “At least people die honestly by my hand. I do not defile my victims.”

 

“Well, that makes all the difference,” Kirk’s answer dripped with sarcasm. “Turn around.”

 

Khan frowned, and then did as Kirk asked.

 

“What were you shot with?”

 

“A nine millimeter pistol. An ineffective and antiquated weapon.”

 

“There’s no exit wound. The round is still in your shoulder and you’ve been moving around. We’ll have to dig it out.”

 

Khan shrugged and said, “I will take care of it.”

 

“Bullshit,” Kirk said. “You can’t get that out on your own.” He gently probed the area of the entrance wound. “You only answered part of my question,” he said, watching Khan carefully. “Why did you say I was yours?”

 

“Because you are.”

 

“Oh, really?” Kirk said, one eyebrow raised. “And when did this transaction occur?”

 

“When your good doctor gave you my blood.” He leveled his gaze on Kirk.

 

Kirk stopped what he was doing and swallowed. Khan wasn’t wearing his contact lenses, so his eyes were their natural color. They were otherworldly, both cold and strikingly beautiful.

 

“You can continue to deny it to yourself, but the more time passes, the more it is true.”

 

“You sure give yourself a lot of credit,” Kirk said, stepping out of the shower and pulling a towel around his waist.

 

“It is a fact. One day soon, you will look at me and realize that you will do anything for me.” He cocked his head. “This is not a bad thing, Kirk. I am capable of extraordinary love and kindness. You’ve known this all along. You could be fulfilled with me. No one would ever dare to hurt you again.”

 

“I’ve not seen you be kind.”

 

“Haven’t you?” Khan asked, then he turned his back and tilted his face into the spray of warm water, washing blood from his hair and body.

 

Kirk swallowed and allowed himself a moment to look at Khan. He was more attractive naked than Kirk had imagined he would be. And there was something kind, something almost gentle about how Khan had helped him after killing Tom, though he was reluctant to admit it aloud. Something crawled beneath his skin like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Along with that feeling was fear – fear that Khan was right, that the day was coming when he would do anything for him.

 

He forced himself to turn away and leave the room, quickly getting dressed and stepping outside to breathe the clean air. When he closed his eyes, images of the blood-spattered warehouse and bloodied and dismembered bodies were juxtaposed with Khan’s naked body gleaming wet, with his haunting, tear-filled eyes, with the way he spoke of the children, with that mouth that... He turned and quickly emptied the contents of his stomach on the ground.

 

* * *

 

 

“This is going to hurt,” Kirk said, placing a pair of pliers that he had sterilized on a clean cloth next to him. “I wish Bones was still here, he could—”

 

“Oh, do get on with it will you?” Khan said, not even attempting to hide the exasperation in his voice. “If you think this is the worst injury I have ever sustained, you would be wrong.”

 

Kirk took a deep breath and spread the entry wound with his thumb and forefinger, and then he gently stuck his finger inside the wound, searching for the bullet. Khan didn’t move, he continued to breathe regularly; only the slight beading of sweat on his forehead betrayed his otherwise placid expression. Once Kirk found the bullet he reached in with the pliers and pulled it out slowly. He dropped it on the table and then placed a compress on Khan’s shoulder as it began to bleed anew.

 

He had one hand on the compress and the other on Khan’s bare back for leverage. The augment sat in a chair, knees spread, and Kirk stood with one leg between Khan’s spread knees. He could feel Khan’s warm breath through his t-shirt.

 

It had been a rough night. Khan would never admit it, but Kirk could see he was exhausted. They were both exhausted. In addition to being shot, Khan had taken a beating back at the warehouse. There were bruises that were already fading on his chest, back and arms. His knuckles were healing but had been bloodied, and a nasty gash on his scalp was also healing over. And, he had lost quite a bit of blood from the gunshot wound. A regular man would have been unconscious by now. A regular man would never have walked out of there alive.

 

He felt Khan waver a small bit, and he leaned forward, taking some of the augment’s weight. To his surprise, Khan leaned into him and sighed a little. Kirk felt the urge to cradle Khan’s head against his stomach, but both his hands were occupied with applying pressure to the wound in Khan’s shoulder.

 

“How long until—”

 

“It has already stopped bleeding,” Khan said wearily, and then he sat back up. “Remove the compress and you will see that I am right.”

 

Kirk did as instructed and the blood flow had stopped, but the wound was still open. He placed a bandage over it then washed Khan’s blood off his fingers. When he came back into the room he saw that Khan had turned down the bed.

 

“You need sleep,” Khan said.

 

“So do you, and I’m not the one who got shot.”

 

“I will be fine. You, however . . . we may share some DNA, but you are not me. Your body does not heal as quickly as mine does and I cannot afford to carry you.”

 

“Thanks for that vote of confidence,” Kirk grumbled. “I can pull my own weight, I promise.” He sighed. “Khan, you are exhausted. I don’t think I’ve seen you sleep since we left the cabin.”

 

“I shall sleep over there,” he pointed to a ratted sofa.

 

“No, I’ll take the couch. You take the bed.”

 

“You really must stop treating me so…”

 

“Kindly?” Kirk asked, a slightly bemused expression on his face.

 

“Gently,” Khan answered. “I am not fragile.”

 

“Way to state the obvious.”

 

Khan smirked. “Sleep.”

 

“Fine, alright,” Kirk relented. He climbed onto the mattress and pulled the blanket over him, closing his eyes and drifting into sleep.

 

* * *

 

He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like his skin was on fire. Khan’s mouth was all over him, teasing and tasting him, and he loved it, he writhed beneath it, all but begging for it. And he felt safe, cherished, loved in a way that he had never felt in all his life. It was more than sex. It was better than just sex.

 

Something hit him in the face and he sputtered as he woke, shoving the discarded shirt away as he sat up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. The sun was just starting to rise.

 

“Mr. Scott has secured a base of operations in the city. It is time to go.”

 

“Which city?” Kirk rubbed his face, then looked down at his crotch. He was half-hard. He wondered if Khan knew what he dreamed; if he did, he wasn’t letting on.

 

“San Francisco.”

 

“That’s . . . we can’t…”

 

“How do you expect to free my crew if we do not travel to where my crew is?”

 

“They’re going to be looking for us.”

 

“Mr. Spock has left a data trail that suggests we have fled to South America.”

 

“At what point did my crew begin taking orders from you?”

 

“When it became clear that I am the one that is experienced in clandestine operations.”

 

“Asshole,” Kirk muttered under his breath.

 

“When I need to be, yes.”

 

“I hope Bones can get you out of my head when he fixes you.”

 

Khan smiled as he packed his bag. “No you don’t,” he murmured to himself.

 

Kirk climbed out of bed and snatched his clothes up, making for the bath to change.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

 

They entered the apartment that Scotty had procured for them. They were on the wharf, near the club district. The area was buzzing with people who lived on the fringes of society: the homeless, the drug addicted, and the criminally subversive. It was the perfect hiding place. No one from Starfleet came to this part of town and no one else cared what happened to the inhabitants.

 

There were multiple rooms, a barely serviceable kitchen, a functional but dilapidated bath, and windows that overlooked the street below. There was a fire escape in the back and a skylight through which they could access the roof. Mr. Scott installed surveillance cameras at every entrance and in multiple places on the street and alley below. Scotty had also secured a storage facility for the van and the weapons they had procured in Canada and installed several layers of security and surveillance, and a defensive barrier all to Khan’s specifications.

 

Starfleet Headquarters was less than a mile away, and the warehouse used by Section 31 was closer than that. Khan grew restless and agitated the moment they had entered the city. Kirk could feel it radiating off the augment, but no one else seemed to notice.

 

They were alone in the apartment after a long discussion with Spock, Scotty, Bones, and Carol Marcus. Scotty had delivered the schematics for the facility where Khan’s crew was being kept, and Carol delivered the bad news that one of them, a male, had already been woken. So far they were only drawing blood for testing, but Khan knew that was only the beginning. Kirk tried like hell to get his crew to walk away from their plan, and Khan had stayed surprisingly neutral throughout the attempt, but there was nothing he could say or do to convince them to leave, and there was nothing they could say to convince him to walk away from Khan.

 

Khan was pacing like a caged wolf. Every minute that went by seemed to increase his anxiety. Kirk watched him and worried about what was about to happen. Historically, Khan acted with extreme violence when angered or threatened. Kirk didn’t think Khan was about to hurt him, necessarily, but he worried about what would happen to anyone who got in between the augment and his crew.

 

Suddenly, Khan stopped. He stared out the window for a long moment then took a deep breath, closing his eyes and unclenching his fists. His entire being seemed to change. Kirk had spent weeks observing him. He knew how Khan moved, how he talked, and was learning how he thought. Khan’s shoulders lowered, the muscles in his shoulders and back relaxed. He seemed to grow soft around the edges in a way that Kirk had never seen before. Khan stood stock still for several minutes, breathing in and out rhythmically, and Kirk thought he saw his lips moving in silent conversation. Then he turned and looked at Kirk.

 

He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. Kirk slowly rose from where he was sitting and without thinking moved toward Khan. He had never seen this particular expression on the augment’s face and he was growing worried that maybe Khan had finally snapped. “Not much longer now,” he said quietly. “I promise. We will get them or I’ll die trying.”

 

Khan looked at Kirk. He walked toward him, slowly, his gaze locked on the Captain’s fiery blue eyes, his hands hanging easily by his sides. “James Tiberius Kirk,” he said, tilting his head slightly. “I have always known you are the heart of the Enterprise, and the heart of your crew. There is nothing they would not do for you.”

 

Kirk frowned. He had never seen Khan like this. He had never seen him look at him this way or speak to him so gently. “And I would do anything for them. You understand this because you are like me. You are more like us than you have ever admitted.”

 

A slight smile of understanding curved Khan’s lips. “You are loved but you have been alone for so long – you are an heir to a legend, and it has been such a lonely life.”

 

Kirk swallowed. Just that moment he had been thinking about what would happen after they freed Khan’s crew and got them all off world. He was wondering how hard it would be to walk away from him. He could not imagine his life without Khan, even though there were days when he wished they had never crossed paths. Khan was infuriating, frightening, sometimes even sickening, but he was also the most astounding being Kirk had ever met, and he had grown so used to him always being there in his mind. In the past weeks they had been together, he had never felt more alive or less alone.

 

“Are you… you said you could not read my thoughts,” Kirk breathed.

 

“Now that Joaquim is awake, I can hear him.”

 

“What does that mean?” He took a step backward.

 

“Joaquim has always been my conscience and my adviser. He has empathic ability, and the ability to read thoughts. I feel his influence now. He speaks to me.”

 

“What does he say?”

 

“That I should trust you.”

 

“You can trust me. I promise,” Kirk said. He swallowed. “Can you read my thoughts now, now that you can hear him?”

 

“Yes,” Khan answered.

 

Khan reached out, but Kirk backed away. He could see the struggle already forming inside the Captain. He pursued Kirk, finally backing him against the wall. “You are your father’s legacy, Kirk. What do you do with such a curse? What do you do with the burden you bear? With the loneliness?” he asked softly, his voice barely a whisper. “You fear making a mistake. You fear failure. I understand, and I promise I will not let you fail.”

 

Kirk looked into Khan’s eyes. He could feel the heat radiating off the augment, and his own body seemed to respond as if disconnected from his mind. “Why should I believe you? You’ve lied and manipulated me.” Kirk was starting to tremble and he hated how Khan made him feel; at the same time, he couldn’t imagine feeling any other way. “How do you expect me to believe that you have changed? Why should I believe you?”

 

“Because I am a part of you now, and you are now part of my family,” Khan leaned in, placing his hands upon the wall next to Kirk’s head. He canted his chin down, bringing their faces so close they could almost touch. Kirk could feel Khan’s warm breath upon his lips. Khan slowly said: “and there is nothing I would not do for my family.”

 

Kirk felt something go molten deep in his core.

 

“There is greatness in you, Jim,” the augment said quietly, his breath warming Kirk’s ear. He said it so softly that it elicited a tremor in Kirk.

 

The words caused Kirk’s eyes to sting. They were some of the last words Pike had said to him. “Don’t say that. Don’t _you_ say that. Pike said that to me and you killed him,” he rasped.

 

“He was right,” Khan said, leaning in closer so that Kirk could feel his breath against his temple. Their bodies were touching. “And I shall help you realize it,” he whispered into Kirk’s ear.

 

A little too late, Kirk realized that everything about Khan was genetically designed to be superior, and that included his production of pheromones. That liquid feeling in his core, the warmth coursing through his body, the sudden, almost overwhelming urge to touch Khan was frighteningly good. He had never in his life wanted to touch anyone the way he wanted to touch Khan in that moment. He was humiliatingly, obviously hard.

 

Then as suddenly as it began, Khan retreated, turning his back and walking away. “One day, James,” he said as he left. “One day soon, you will follow me, and I promise, you will not regret it.”

 

As the door closed behind Khan, Kirk bent over, and placed his hands on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath. “I am fucked,” he whispered hoarsely.

 

* * *

 

Carol Marcus was analyzing information on a data pad and Bones was leaning over her shoulder, discussing what they were seeing.

 

Kirk watched them from a short distance in the living room of the apartment he shared with Khan, a smile on his lips. He had the feeling something was going on between the two, and he suspected it had begun shortly after his death.

 

“You would be right,” Khan said quietly over his shoulder, his voice no more than a murmur, and Kirk jumped but he didn’t move away. “Your good doctor is quite taken with Dr. Marcus, and she feels the same about him.”

 

“You have got to stop doing that,” Kirk grumbled.

 

“Doing what?” Khan asked, barely feigning innocence.

 

Kirk turned around and put his hands on Khan’s chest, moving him back a step. Khan went without resistance. “We need some ground rules now that we have this new development.”

 

“Such as?”

 

“You have got to stop reading my mind.”

 

“Mr. Singh can read your mind?” Spock asked as he approached.

 

“Yes, Mr. Spock. I can read his mind,” Khan answered.

 

Spock raised an eyebrow. “And the rest of us?”

 

“No, only the Captain. It is a result of our shared DNA and my reestablished psychic link with Joaquim.”

 

“Joaquim is the crew member they brought out of cryosleep,” Kirk added in explanation. “Apparently he has empathic abilities that enable Khan to read my thoughts.”

 

“And your feelings,” Khan added.

 

“Great,” Kirk grumbled.

 

“Please explain how you came to this conclusion about Dr. Marcus and Dr. McCoy,” Spock said.

 

“Yeah, do tell,” Bones grumbled.

 

Apparently the conversation had gotten quite a bit louder with the inclusion of Spock.

 

“I do not need to read your minds to see what is obvious,” Khan said. “Even your captain noticed.”

 

“Don’t drag me into this,” Kirk complained.

 

Bones pointed at Khan. “You. Come here and sit down.”

 

Khan sighed and rolled his eyes, obeying the Doctor’s command. Bones began scanning the augment for physical and neural changes. He did not like what he saw.

 

“These readings are off the charts,” Bones said. “His neural output has increased by fifteen percent.”

 

“And it will continue to increase with each crew member that is woken. Each time I form a new psychic connection, I will become stronger in ways that relate directly to the abilities of the person woken. Joaquim’s abilities are centered around empathy and reasoning. He shares the same physical abilities as the rest of us, to a degree, but he was primarily built to be an inquisitor.” He looked McCoy in the eye. “You should tell her how you feel and stop leaving it to her to divine it from you. Time for all of us may be quite short.”

 

“Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll be taking advice on my love life from a mass murderer.”

 

Khan shrugged. “Your choice.”

 

“Unbelievable,” Bones grumbled as he returned to Carol, who had watched the entire interaction with curiosity and a little smile.

 

Kirk couldn’t help but grin a little.

 

“Jim,” Spock said into his ear. “This development concerns me. If Khan has unlimited access to your thoughts and your feelings, this could put us all in jeopardy.”

 

Kirk looked at Spock. “I think you’re wrong about him, Spock. But, for safety’s sake, let’s say you’re right. None of you can share anything with me that you don’t want Khan to know. What I don’t know, he can’t know.”

 

“This does not solve the problem of your personal well-being.”

 

“I will be fine, Spock. Khan has done nothing but protect me since we brought him back. He’s saved my life at least four times. I’ve been alone with him for weeks and he’s not made one move or given one indication that he intends to hurt me.”

 

“He could be lying to you, Captain. He has done it before. Once he has what he wants.”

 

“I don’t think he’s lying.” Kirk watched Khan review the schematics of the storage warehouse with Scotty and Carol Marcus. He seemed to be indicating possible routes of egress. “I just wish this telepathic and empathic ability went both ways.”

 

“That would be a considerable advantage,” Spock answered.

 

Kirk clapped Spock on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s see what he has come up with.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

 

The stark truth of their reality was that Khan had a choice to make. He could live and go on to exact full revenge upon Starfleet, and it would not be difficult. Thanks to Mr. Spock, all recent record of John Harrison had been wiped from every military data source on Earth and from every database that Starfleet had. It was as if he never existed. Sure, there may be the occasional human who recognized his face after the disaster in San Francisco, but with his changed appearance it was unlikely they would connect him to the face of the terrorist they remembered.

 

The only records of his true identity and that of his followers were secured and were text files – no images had survived from the original records of the 20th Century, and Section 31 had buried the records and evidence of the Botany Bay encounter in order to hide their covert operation. Khan could move about freely and no one would know him other than Jim Kirk and his crew, and that was also an easy problem to solve. Kill Kirk, kill those of his crew that had followed their captain and there would be no witnesses to his existence.

 

All this could be achieved. All he had to do was use Kirk and his crew to free his own, wake them, and then commit murder and walk away. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done the like before…

 

But he couldn’t bring himself to even imagine killing Kirk. It was easier to imagine killing the others, until he saw the pain on Kirk’s face in his mind’s eye. In the end, he knew he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill those who had only helped him when no one felt he deserved it, and he wasn’t quite sure when this had changed for him.

 

There was only one outcome, one answer.

 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Kirk said.

 

The man stood close, his shoulder touching Khan’s as they looked out over the waterfront.

 

“If you did, you would kill me where I stand,” Khan answered.

 

Kirk smirked and huffed. “You’d like to think so, but I know you better. The future isn’t decided. We can win this.”

 

Khan smiled wryly. “Do you have an army in your back pocket?”

 

Kirk just shook his head.

 

“The odds are overwhelmingly stacked against us. Section 31 employs fifty armed security guards at the warehouse location at any one time. The revival cycle from cryosleep takes too long to wake my crew on the spot, so we will be without their help. The ship Mr. Scott has stolen can only transport thirty objects at once; this means that we will need three full transportation cycles without detection, assuming Mr. Spock is successful in bringing down the warehouse’s defensive systems. Once we are discovered and their systems are back online, which will take only 5 minutes to achieve, they will lock the system down and prevent further access. That will force us to move any of my remaining crewmembers manually, while facing armed resistance. While they will not kill me, they will most certainly kill you and every member of your crew that they catch. This is a suicide mission, Jim.”

 

Khan turned and looked at the man. “You died once, for your crew. Are you now saying that you will die for mine? That you will condemn your own crew to their deaths?”

 

Kirk swallowed. “I can’t… I won’t ask that of them.”

 

“I know. You would not be the man I know if you did. You won’t ask it but they will come nonetheless and the chances of our plan succeeding are slim. It is likely that many of us will die.”

 

“Spock put our odds at 28.6% success.”

 

“That is an accurate estimation,” Khan answered. He turned away. “I cannot leave my crew there. I will see them all dead before I leave them to that fate.” Kirk’s hand on his shoulder was warm; it attempted to convey comfort where none was to be had. “You have done enough,” Khan said softly. Even as the words left his lips he could barely believe he was saying them. “Have Mr. Scott transport as many of my crew as he can before we are detected. Once we are discovered, take your crew and those you can rescue of mine and leave this world. Find another place to call home. They will protect you.”

 

“And you? What will you do?”

 

“All that is left to do,” Khan said, matter-of-factly. “I cannot leave a single member of my crew alive in that place. I will stay behind and kill any that are left, then I will kill myself.”

 

“No.”

 

“Kirk. This was unachievable from the beginning. Surely you knew that.”

 

“No. I don’t accept that. The plan will work. We will get your people out and get you clear of this place.”

 

Khan sighed and closed his eyes. He wished the man’s optimism were contagious. Kirk’s hand was warm on the back of his neck. He felt his fingertips gently toying with the curls at the nape of his neck. He wanted so much more from this man who only a year ago he had tried to kill. Kirk’s kindness had changed him in ways he never would have believed possible. And the abilities he shared with Joaquim were helping him realize and accept what was becoming truth for him. He wondered if his crew would recognize him now. It seemed that the bond between Kirk and him worked both ways.

 

“You need to sleep,” Kirk said.  “You look exhausted, and that is saying something for you.”

 

“And you are also exhausted.”

 

“Then let’s sleep, even if it is only for a few hours.”

 

Khan nodded and followed Kirk toward their respective bedrooms.

 

* * *

 

Kirk woke and sat up in bed to find Khan watching him. The augment stood by the window and was silhouetted by the streetlights that cast an orange glow through the glass. He swallowed, knowing Khan now knew what he thought and what he felt. He wondered if his feelings were because of the bond created by their shared DNA, or if he really did honestly desire the man of his own volition.

 

“It is a little of both,” Khan said softly, not moving from his spot by the window. “And I would be lying if I did not say that I feel the same.”

 

“Why would you feel that way about me?” Kirk asked.

 

“A combination of things. You are handsome and you have a certain kind of charm. I will be honest and say that I prefer your natural appearance to this disguise.”

 

“You said it was a combination.”

 

“You have, for reasons I will never understand, shown me kindness when all I have shown you was cruelty. I have never known a man like you, Jim Kirk. You intrigue me. Even now that I can read you as easily as a book, I find I still do not quite understand why you have done what you have done. What led you to risk your career and your life on someone who only did you wrong? My experience tells me it is weakness, but I also know it is a show of incredible strength.”

 

“I do not understand you, Khan. I . . . struggle to reconcile the things you have done with the man I have come to know.”

 

“You are conflicted.”

 

“I am. How can I help you? That is the easy part. I am helping you because I have to right this wrong. I cannot be a party to the continuation of cruelty that you and your crew have experienced. I have also hoped that our kindness might make you reassess your beliefs about humans.”

 

“It has, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t mistrust the vast majority of you,” Khan responded.

 

“You have cause for that.”

 

“The hard part is caring for me.”

 

Kirk took a deep breath. “It is. I don’t know how I can want to protect you after what you have done. You…” his voice broke and he cleared his throat. “You killed the closest thing I ever had to a father. The only thing that would make it worse was if you set out to kill him specifically rather than considering him collateral damage.”

 

Khan looked at the floor. “I knew what I was doing, Kirk. I intended to kill every single person in that room.”

 

“I wish you weren’t always so honest.”

 

“You wish I were one or the other – a man or a monster.”

 

Kirk nodded and looked down.

 

Khan sat on the edge of Kirk’s bed. “I am both. I have always been… but I am trying to learn to be more of a man where you and your crew are concerned.”

 

Kirk looked back up at Khan. “You could be a great man, Khan. You could inspire millions of people.”

 

Khan smiled a little. “But I have much to atone for in order to do that and I am not entirely sure I want to atone.”

 

“What do you want?”

 

“To be left alone. To be free. I want my crew to be safe.”

 

“You told Spock that you would continue the work you started before exile.”

 

“Yes, and I believed that at the time. Now . . . it is fruitless.”

 

Kirk felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. “You would continue? You would enslave and kill?”

 

“I never killed without cause.” He looked Kirk in the eye and admitted a hard truth that had only previously been known to himself. “I do not know how to teach you all when I myself have so much to learn. I thought you were incapable of learning and unworthy of trust, so I enslaved you. I took away your freedom to do harm to yourselves and each other. I thought it was better than letting you…” He shook his head. “I see now that was wrong. So, you tell me, James. How do I teach you to be better when I do not know how to be better myself?”

 

Kirk leaned forward, placing his arms on his bent knees. “But you do know how to be better. This conversation proves that. I was right about you, Khan.”

 

“How can you forgive me for what I have done when I can never forgive those who harmed me and my crew? If I had to do it again, I would still kill Marcus with my bare hands.”

 

“Would you do it in front of his daughter? Would you harm Carol?”

 

Khan hesitated and stared into Kirk’s eyes. What was the truth? The truth was he barely even remembered she was there – at the time, he considered her presence to be of no consequence at all.

 

“Now? No, I would not hurt her. But I would still crush his skull with my bare hands. He deserved much worse.”

 

“You wouldn’t hurt her because you know her now.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Kirk sighed. “I wish I could tell you that you will never be threatened by humans again. I wish I could tell you that you will never have cause to harm another but we both know I’d be lying.”

 

“Because humans are worse than animals,” Khan said, the coldness that had been absent for a few days began to creep back into his voice. “Animals do not maim, defile, and torture one another.”

 

“Not all humans do those things,” Kirk said.

 

“Not all,” Khan agreed. “Not you.”

 

Kirk knew he shouldn’t do what he was about to do; he also knew Khan knew what was coming. Knowing what he should and shouldn’t do had never stopped him from doing something stupid before.

 

Despite knowing what was coming, Khan waited for Kirk to reach out and grasp his shirt, to pull him closer, for the man to put his hand on the back of his neck and press his lips to his mouth. Khan waited, he complied, but once their lips touched, he took over, pressing Kirk back into the bed and pinning him with his weight.

 

It was a slow, lazy kiss that Khan hadn’t anticipated. For weeks Kirk had been fighting the mounting desire he had for Khan, and Khan thought that when they finally did come together it would be rushed and frantic, full of need. But it wasn’t.

 

It was slow and comfortable, and a little bit unsure. Khan read all of the questions that Kirk had: would he betray him? would he break his heart? or would he love him truly like he had never been loved in his life. These questions gave Khan pause because he had no answer. He knew what it felt like to want to be loved and to be afraid of rejection. He had spent his entire childhood feeling just that way. He did not understand the feelings he had toward this man and, truthfully, they frightened him. He could hear Joaquim in his mind, telling him not to be afraid. Telling him to trust, but it was so difficult.

 

What wasn’t difficult was how Kirk smelled and tasted and felt. What wasn’t difficult was allowing his own desire free rein to touch, taste, and feel. Now that Kirk finally gave himself permission to want him, the man no longer trembled. He took as freely as he gave, hands roaming, mouth tasting. The sounds the man made caused Khan to feel almost light-headed with desire.

 

Kirk’s hands were roaming Khan’s back, up underneath his shirt, callused hands sliding on his bare skin. They separated long enough for Kirk to pull Khan’s shirt over his head and send it sailing across the room. Khan hadn’t been touched like this in longer than he could remember. He had been alone for so long and now he wasn’t.

 

Kirk groaned when Khan bit his bare chest, arching his back as his legs fell open. He hooked one leg around Khan, and he cursed when Khan’s lips and tongue explored his navel. Another nip to the flesh of his lower abdomen and then his pajama pants gave way and he was naked. Khan’s large hands separated his thighs and he felt the augment’s breath on his cock.

 

“Fuckfuckfuck…” the curses spilled off his tongue in rapid fire and Khan’s deep, rumbling chuckle made his dick twitch.

 

“In due time, James. In due time,” Khan murmured, then he bestowed a long lick up the length of Kirk’s dick.

 

“You are going to kill me,” Kirk stammered.

 

“No,” Khan said. “Not exactly. But I will ruin you for anyone else.”

 

“I think you’ve already done that,” Kirk breathed, then he almost yelped as Khan swallowed him deep with no preamble. He fisted the sheets and writhed beneath Khan, struggling to thrust into his mouth, but Khan had him pinned to the bed. It took longer than he expected, but then he felt it, starting deep inside then spreading outward, a raging heat that exploded from deep in his core before setting his limbs to tingling. Khan drank him down then sat up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

 

Khan moved back up Kirk’s body, bestowing languorous kisses on his stomach and chest, before grasping Kirk’s jaw and ravishing his mouth.

 

Khan’s kiss was salty, and he realized it was his own come he tasted on the augment’s tongue. He gave as good as he got, grasping the back of Khan’s head as he delved deep into his mouth. Khan lifted himself long enough to remove his own pants, then he grasped Kirk’s free hand and guided it to his hard dick, where Kirk put every memory of every hand job and every bit of knowledge he had about jerking himself off to work on the augment, spreading the precome along his length and praying that it would satisfy him.

 

Khan’s mouth was busy on Kirk’s neck, marking it all over. Kirk halfway wished the marks wouldn’t fade as quickly as they appeared. Khan thrust into Kirk’s fist and the feeling of the augment rocking against him, of Khan’s naked body thrusting into his hand was the most astounding and addictive feeling in the world. Khan lifted himself up, pressing his forehead against Kirk’s as he thrust into the man’s hand faster and faster, Kirk’s fist grew slicker and slicker and he tightened his grip. Khan groaned and sought Kirk’s mouth and Kirk lapped at the augment’s lips before opening wide to Khan’s tongue.

 

When Khan came, he did so with a deep, possessive growl that nearly made Kirk hard again, and then he collapsed on Kirk heedless of the come that now covered the man’s belly and chest.

 

Kirk wrapped his arms around Khan and held him there for a short while. Then he chuckled to himself.

 

“Is something funny?” Khan asked, his voice sounding far away and sleepy.

 

“I never thought you’d be a cuddler.”

 

Khan chuckled and Kirk thought of how much he loved that sound. “Nor did I imagine the same of you,” Khan responded, then he raised himself up off of Kirk and looked down at the mess they made. “My bed,” he said, as he climbed off of Kirk.

 

Kirk was surprised at the invitation, but didn’t question it. He climbed out of his bed and followed the augment to the bathroom where they cleaned themselves up before moving to Khan’s room.

 

As Kirk climbed into bed, Khan lay prone on his stomach, one arm hanging off the side of the mattress. Kirk allowed his hands to roam the augment’s back and bare backside before tucking himself around Khan. Khan murmured his approval and closed his eyes, and Kirk followed suit.

 

* * *

It had all gone so wrong. Khan’s crew was still in their cryotubes, still asleep and unable to help them, and fifty of Section 31’s finest mercenaries were closing in on them fast. Mr. Scott, Mr. Sulu, and Mr. Chekhov were aboard the modified long-range freighter they had procured. Sulu and Chekhov were helping to clear the transporter pads and prepare for the next group as Scotty manned the controls of the transporter. The first two rounds were achieved before the facility’s shields came back up. There were two cryotubes left to beam out, containing the children, and Khan, Kirk, and four Enterprise crewmembers were stranded below. They were pinned down by phaser fire.

 

Khan quickly climbed to a higher vantage point and began providing cover fire for Kirk and his crew. Kirk and Spock were firing on the ground and Uhura was returning fire from where she was pinned down by the cryotubes. Bones knelt over Carol Marcus, who was badly wounded.

 

“If I don’t get her out of here soon, she’s going to bleed out!” Bones shouted to Spock.

 

Spock glanced in McCoy’s direction to see that the doctor was battered and had a head wound, but he was holding a compress to Carol’s stomach. Lt. Uhura had a bad leg wound but was managing; and he was bleeding from a head wound himself. Kirk had wounds that would heal quickly and Spock could see he was in pain but in good enough shape to get them to safety.

 

“Get them out of here!” Khan shouted, then he tossed a grenade and blew a hole in the wall leading to the outside. Kirk saw an unguarded shuttlecraft right outside of their point of egress. If they could just get there they could rendezvous with the freighter and haul ass.

 

He heard a ferocious volley of phaser fire and he looked up in horror as Khan fell more than fifty feet, landing on a pallet of provisions before falling to the floor. He shouted and ran toward the augment, firing as he weaved and dodged phaser fire.

 

Khan was in bad shape. He groaned as he shook off the stupor he was in. He suspected his back was broken, as he could not feel anything from the waist down. If time were on their side, he’d recover, but even he couldn’t recover from injuries that extensive in the little time they had left. He looked at the bag he had brought with him that lay just in reach.

 

“Okay, okay,” Kirk breathed sheathing his weapon and grabbing Khan beneath the arms. “I’ve got you, we’re getting out of here. Bones will fix you right up.”

 

Khan growled in pain as Kirk began to drag him toward safety. “I am slowing you down and they’re advancing fast. Go. I will take care of this.” Khan said in a strained voice. “Go and take the children with you. My people will protect you. They will help you and protect you the way you have helped me.”

 

“No,” Kirk growled. “I am not leaving you to them.”

 

“Stop,” Khan groaned, and Kirk stopped dragging him.

 

“I’ll carry you,” he said, and then he took a step back when Khan drew his weapon and pointed it at him.

 

“Leave,” Khan growled. “NOW!”

 

Spock reached Kirk and grabbed his friend. “We must go, now, before our path to the shuttle is cut off.”

 

“No. No, I am not leaving him…”

 

“Save the children, Kirk,” Khan pleaded. “They are only children…”

 

Kirk growled in frustration. “Alright, but I am coming back for you.”

 

Spock dragged a reluctant Kirk a few steps before the Captain turned and grabbed the cryotube containing Alexander and started moving as fast as he could toward the exit Khan had made. Uhura forced herself to move the cryotube containing Sasha, despite the pain walking on her leg caused, and Spock provided cover fire as Bones carried Carol Marcus.

 

The last cryotube was loaded on the shuttle and Kirk turned to go back for Khan when the building exploded, knocking him to his back in the doorway to the shuttle.

 

“No!” he cried out, reaching out toward where Khan had been.

 

“Captain, we have to go, now or we will never break free,” Spock said, helping his friend to his feet. He grabbed Kirk’s shoulders and shook him. “He is gone, Jim.”

 

Sulu took the pilot’s chair with Chekhov assisting, and Kirk manned the weapon’s console as the shuttle rose into the sky, leaving Section 31’s burning warehouse behind.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

 

Kirk stood and looked out at the planet from the observatory as Spock was conversing with the elder version of himself. The colony of New Vulcan would take Khan’s crew in and harbor them, and create new identities for them. This surprised Kirk as the elder Spock had been the one who revealed Khan’s nature, as he had known it anyway. The elder Spock only knew Khan and his people as the murderers they had been in the alternate timeline. Kirk would always wonder what younger Spock had said to change his mind.

 

Not all of Khan’s crew were what Kirk expected. The majority of them were warriors, but not all. Kati seemed to be more affected by Khan’s death than the rest of his crew. They all grieved, but Kati & Joaquim grieved most. Kirk did not have the heart to ask Kati what Khan was to her. She was the first to undergo McCoy’s genetic correction, and Kirk wondered if her grief was what led her to volunteer to go first.

 

Kirk and his crew would remain on the newly established Vulcan colony while the elder Spock worked to expose the corruption within Section 31 and clear their names.

 

Kirk did not sleep well at night, only succumbing when his body could go no longer. Grief was changing him too. He felt like a part of himself was missing, like he was incomplete. He no longer heard Khan’s voice in his mind, no longer felt his presence. He imagined that the bond had been shattered when the augment sacrificed himself to save his crew. It had only been a few weeks ago when he had openly wished Khan was out of his head. Now that he was gone, he would give anything to have him back.

 

He was looking up at the night sky when Kati found him. She stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder. “You loved him,” she said softly.

 

Kirk swallowed as his eyes stung with unshed tears. “I could have, I think.”

 

“He was not an easy man to love,” she said, “but loving him was extraordinarily fulfilling.”

 

“He was good to you.” It was more a statement than a question.

 

“Yes. He loved us. There was nothing he would not do for us. He died for us, and for you.”

 

_Is there nothing you would not do for your family?_

 

“I am sorry that I could not save him,” Kirk said, his voice cracking as he did.

 

“You tried,” Kati said. She kissed the back of Kirk’s head, and then stroked his cropped, blonde hair. “That is more than anyone else ever did.” She looked up at the moon and stars. “You are part of us now, Kirk. You are family.”

 

Kirk turned and looked at her. She was extraordinarily beautiful, with large brown eyes and thick brown hair. She was physically the smallest of the augments, other than the children of course. Standing straight, she barely came to Kirk’s shoulder. She was a teacher and a caretaker. She could fight, like all of them could, but her purpose was a more peaceful one.

 

She looked up at him, smiling sadly. She then caressed his face, fingers trailing over his freshly shaven jaw. “You are a lot like him, you know,” she said softly. “I see him in you.” She trailed her hand down his arm, briefly holding his hand before walking away.

 

He watched her walk back inside and the tears finally fell from his eyes.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It was six months before Kirk and his crew could return to Earth without fear of imprisonment. The elder Spock had cleared their names and exposed the deeds of Section 31. While Khan would always be remembered by most as a terrorist, and by some as a martyr once the truth was revealed, he would always be remembered by Kirk as the most unlikely friend he ever had.

 

He hoped that Khan somehow survived the explosion, but he knew that even for the augment it was unlikely. No sign of any remains had been found – the fire simply burned too hot.

 

Kirk was placed on probation for his actions and took the brunt of the punishment. He was cleared of any murder or terrorism charges, but was sanctioned for aiding and abetting a known criminal. He was grounded for nine months pending review, and then he hoped he’d be reinstated and given his ship back, but that too seemed unlikely.

 

He received weekly updates from Kati and Joaquim on the augments’ progress once he returned to Earth. The children were thriving in the Vulcan environment, learning faster and adapting more fully than anyone had dared hope. Living amongst a people who had chosen to let reason rule them, rather than emotion was good for the augments as they learned to live in a different world than the one they had last known and learned how to live with their genetic corrections. Kati and Joaquim never let the children forget about Khan, their leader who had given his life for them so that they could be free. In exchange for their hospitality, the Vulcan colony received sound advice and assistance in bolstering their defenses. The Klingon Empire continued to encroach upon neighboring worlds, and Khan’s people helped the Vulcans prepare to defend themselves. The Vulcans, in turn, passed their newfound knowledge to Starfleet so that it could protect Earth and its other colonies.

 

With six months of free time on his hands, Kirk had nothing to do but drive himself mad thinking about Khan. He began searching for any sign of him. Both Spock and McCoy told him it was impossible that Khan survived, but Kirk couldn’t let it go. He had seen an image of a man who could be Khan in Casablanca, and since he had nothing better to do, he decided to check it out once he was back on Earth. He moved from Casablanca to Rabat, and then finally to Tangier, following the trail of the man he believed was Khan.

 

It was bitterly cold, as only the desert can be in winter and the wind whipped through the narrow alleyways of the Medina. The Medina was the oldest part of the city of Tangier, lovingly restored and preserved so that it looked much the same as it did in ancient history. Many of its residents wore modernized versions of the kaftans they wore throughout the ages.

 

Kirk wandered the narrow streets, breathing in the exotic scents of the food being prepared and the perfumes the women wore and the smell of the sea. He was surrounded by living history and it helped keep his search for Khan in perspective. There was something about this otherworldly place, with its antiquated bartering system and modes of transportation, and minimal technology that he fell in love with almost immediately. He decided that even if he never found Khan, the trip had other advantages for him.

 

He left the Medina and stopped at a café on his way back to his hotel. He sipped Turkish coffee and watched people pass by on the street. His communication device chirped and he flipped it open, smiling before he answered.

 

“Hello, Spock.”

 

“Captain. How do you find Morocco?”

 

“Fantastic. You should come check it out, it’s a beautiful city and I tell you the food here is the best I’ve ever had. I actually ate camel last night with my fingers, cooked over an open fire. It was phenomenal.”

 

“I shall take your word for it.”

 

Kirk smiled. “How are things at HQ? How’s our ship?”

 

“The Enterprise is ready for flight, Captain.”

 

“And is Starfleet ready for me to take the Captain’s chair again?”

 

“That is unclear.”

 

Kirk sighed and nodded. “How is Uhura?”

 

“We are to be betrothed.”

 

“Wait. What? You and Uhura are getting married?”

 

“Yes, Captain. That is the reason for my call. I would like to ask you to be my best man.”

 

“I would be honored, Spock,” Kirk said with a smile. “When is the date?”

 

“Three weeks time. It will be an intimate affair.”

 

“I will be there, I promise.”

 

“Thank you, Jim. Dr. McCoy requests that you contact him. He has been complaining.”

 

“When is Bones not complaining about something, Spock?”

 

“That is true. He and Dr. Marcus are living together.”

 

“Hang on. When did this happen?”

 

“Two weeks ago.”

 

“And you’re just telling me this now?”

 

“I did not think it relevant until now.”

 

Kirk held the communicator away from his ear and shook his head in exasperation. Some things never changed. “Well, thanks for letting me know. Wait. Why is it relevant now?”

 

“They will also be in the wedding party. Dr. Marcus is Nyota’s Maid of Honor.”

 

“Ah, I see. Well, I look forward to seeing you all again.”

 

“You are ready to come home then, I assume?”

 

“I will be. For right now, I’m just enjoying my surroundings.”

 

“Have you had success finding Mr. Singh?”

 

Kirk sighed and shook his head. “No. If he was here, he’s long gone.”

 

“Jim, while I understand and even appreciate your desire to find him, surely you must know—”

 

“Yeah, yeah. It was a long shot. I’m okay, Spock. I’ll be home soon.”

 

“Contact me when you arrive.”

 

“I will, Spock. Give Uhura a hug for me.”

 

“I shall.”

 

“Goodbye, Spock.”

 

“Goodbye, Captain.”

 

Kirk flipped the communicator shut and downed the rest of his coffee. He left some coins on the table and then headed for his hotel.

 

He opened the door to his room to find that the staff had closed his windows for him and activated the warming device on his bed. He opened the doors and stepped out onto the balcony and looked at the city below. The full moon caused the waters of the bay to gleam blue and white, and palm trees gently swayed in the cold breeze.

 

This place was peaceful. It reminded him of why he joined Starfleet – to protect places like this where different cultures and beliefs co-mingled and respected one another, where everyone was accepted no matter how different they were or what they had done. It was the perfect place…

 

“For someone like me.”

 

Kirk jumped and spun around to find Khan standing in the middle of his hotel room.

 

He couldn’t move or speak for what felt like forever. Khan stood stock-still looking at Kirk like they had only seen one another yesterday.

 

“You…”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You’re…”

 

“Alive, yes.”

 

Kirk walked toward Khan slowly, almost believing the augment would vanish into thin air. He had imagined this for so long, holding on to hope when everyone told him it was impossible. He stood close, looking into Khan’s eyes. The augment’s appearance was just as it had been the first time he saw him up close: black hair falling over one eye, pale skin that glowed in the candlelight of his room. Kirk closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then punched Khan square in the face.

 

“You son of a bitch! I have been looking for you everywhere! I have been… so… ”

 

“Lost?”

 

Kirk glared at him and poked him hard in the chest. “Your people have been grieving you and there you stand as calm as can be, like you’ve only popped out for a beer!”

 

Kirk grabbed the lapels of Khan’s coat and hauled him in for a rough kiss. Khan placed his hands on Kirk’s waist, then slid one hand up the man’s back and the other down to his backside, giving it a hard squeeze as he returned the kiss.

 

Kirk grabbed Khan’s head and pressed his forehead to him. “Where have you been? Where have you been hiding?” he breathed, barely able to believe what was right in front of him.

 

“I could not come to you, not without risking being captured by Starfleet command, so I had to draw you out, have you come to me. My people, they are safe?”

 

“Yes,” Kirk said nuzzling Khan’s face. “Yes. They are on the new Vulcan colony, under their protection. God, I missed you. I didn’t realize exactly how much until just now.”

 

“And Section 31?”

 

“Dismantled. Most of its leaders have been imprisoned.”

 

“Most?”

 

“Two escaped off world. They are currently being hunted down and will be brought back to justice. This is where you tell me you missed me too.”

 

“Of course I did. I know how much you suffered. I felt it.” Khan kissed Kirk softly, savoring the feel of the man’s full lips.

 

“You felt it? How? I haven’t-”

 

“I had to close myself off to you, so you would not reveal that I was still alive. Are you safe?”

 

Kirk smiled and drew back. He couldn’t stop touching Khan; he had to feel him to believe what his heart had told him all along, that the augment was alive. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m riding the bench for another six months or so, but I won’t go to prison, or be killed.” He reluctantly let go of Khan and crossed the room, closing the shutters on his doors and drawing the curtains. “I have no idea if I’ve been followed. I don’t think I have but this wasn’t exactly a clandestine operation here since no one believed you could be alive except me.”

 

“You were not followed. I have been shadowing you for several days to ensure it. Starfleet Command still believes I am dead then.”

 

“Yeah, everyone does…”

 

“Good.” Khan smiled and reached out as Kirk approached him again. He clasped the back of the man’s neck. “Ever the optimist, Jim?”

 

“As a good friend once said, Leopards don’t change their spots.” He frowned and looked closely into Khan’s eyes. “Killed anyone lately?” It was half joke, half fear on Kirk’s part.

 

“Not since I blew up a warehouse full of Section 31 mercenaries.”

 

“Good. That’s good. It appears my friend was wrong, at least sometimes.”

 

“Your crew? Dr. Marcus?”

 

“She pulled through though it was close. She’s fool enough to live with Bones now. They’re all fine, we all made it out alive, thanks to you.”

 

Khan smiled a little. “I see the good doctor took my advice.”

 

“He’ll never admit that, you know.”

 

Khan nodded, but he was still smiling. Kirk embraced him and held on tight.

 

“Damn, I’m glad you found me.”

 

“So am I,” Khan answered, bringing one of his hands to rest on the back of Kirk’s head, cradling it on his shoulder. “Can you take me to my crew?”

 

Kirk swallowed. “This could be… complicated.”

 

Khan pulled away and viewed Kirk with suspicion. “Why?”

 

“Wait. No!” He grabbed Khan’s arm. “I am not going to keep you from them. I promised you I would reunite you and I meant that.” He swallowed when he saw the look that Khan fixed him with. “Spock… the other, elder Spock. He knew you in an alternate reality.”

 

Khan cocked his head and frowned. “What are you talking about?”

 

“Before Marcus woke you on the Botany Bay, twenty six years before, to be exact, a Romulan mining vessel from the twenty fourth century crossed through a worm hole into Federation space. The ship was then followed through the worm hole some twenty five years later by Spock… the future version of the Spock you know.”

 

“Two Spocks, co-existing in the same space in time?”

 

“Yes. You’re taking this news very rationally,” Kirk said, a bit a smirk on his face.

 

“And how did Spock take this news?”

 

“About like you did.”

 

Khan smirked. “I am surprised that a worm hole was stable enough for such transport, but go on. The future was then changed, I presume?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Tell me what I did in the alternate timeline that causes such concern.”

 

Kirk turned away from Khan for a moment, wondering how to proceed. Telling the augment that he and his people died following a violent conflict with the other Enterprise crew, and that Khan and his people had suffered a tragic fate at the hands of Starfleet once again, though that time it was unintentional, was not something he relished doing, particularly after how much it had taken to gain Khan’s trust.

 

“What happened in that other reality,” Kirk began, “is… I don’t want you to think…”

 

Khan frowned. “What happened, Jim?”

 

“That version of me no longer exists. That person never came to be. I am the only James Kirk in existence and I would never-”

 

“What did you do?” Khan asked, slowly advancing on Kirk.

 

“The Enterprise found the Botany Bay,” he said quickly, backing very slowly away from Khan.

 

“I ask you again, what did you do?”

 

Kirk swallowed. How he explained this would make the difference between Khan never trusting him again, and doing God knows what, and him keeping his friend – his lover’s trust, thereby keeping him in his life.

 

“You were then much like you were now, before all this happened. You did not trust the Federation; you and your crew attempted to take over the Enterprise. We fought and according to the records I was able to render you unconscious.”

 

Khan was standing very close to Kirk and the man looked up into ice-grey eyes that were both frightening and alluring. He tentatively reached out and put his hand on Khan’s chest, feeling the steady thump of the augment’s heart. “You are not that man,” he said quietly. “Neither am I.”

 

“We have changed one another,” Khan said, placing his hand over the top of Kirk’s. “You once asked me to trust you, and I did. Now you must trust me and tell me what I need to know.”

 

“After the takeover attempt, I – the other me – gave you and your people an opportunity to colonize Ceti Alpha V.”

 

“And? There is more to this than you are telling me, James. I cannot read your mind any longer, but I can see by the look on your face that there is more to this.”

 

Kirk hated this. He hated what he had read about the loss of a man he had come to know as one very different than what the elder Spock had recorded. He hated what that other version of himself did and hated the other Khan too. He took a deep breath and continued, hoping that Khan would not hate him the same.

“You and your people were provided with cargo containers for shelter. Only six months after you arrived, an event shifted the system's orbits, and caused massive ecological devastation. Most of the indigenous life on the planet perished, and you lost twenty of your people.”

 

“No rescue attempt was made,” Khan said coldly.

 

“Neither I…” he scrubbed his face, “nor Starfleet followed up on your progress so we did not know what happened. Eventually, a ship arrived to find the planet almost devoid of life. Two crewmembers beamed down to survey the planet and you captured them and demanded to know the nature of their mission and my whereabouts and then took over their ship.”

 

“I sought vengeance.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Go on.”

 

“I… I can’t,” Kirk said. “It’s all on the data pad there by my bed. If you want to know the details, you can see for yourself.”

 

Khan turned and looked at the device.

 

“The men that record describes are not you and I,” Kirk said, placing his hand on Khan’s arm. “That version of you, he was… he was insane and hell-bent on destroying me and everything I loved.”

 

“And that version of you?”

 

“Was blind and did not see who you could become.”

 

“I died,” Khan said quietly.

 

“Yes.”

 

“You?”

 

“I survived. Spock died instead of me.”

 

“But that Spock is here, in this time,” Khan said looking back at Kirk.

 

“He was reborn.”

 

“Using my blood?”

 

“No. Something else happened to him, something called the Genesis device.”

 

“My crew?”

 

“They died with you. Your ship was destroyed.”

 

“So, you woke me, feared me, then left me and my people to die on a doomed planet, then you killed us all.”

 

“I didn’t know what was going to happen to that planet. I… that version of me thought you would have a chance. I later killed you because I had to. If I did not, you would have killed me and my entire crew.” Kirk grabbed both of Khan’s arms. “That record, those people are not you and me. That is what might have happened if-”

 

“It did happen, Kirk. In another time.”

 

“Isn’t this the only time that matters?” Kirk asked.

 

Khan took a deep breath. Had he known this at the start, he never would have trusted Kirk. But now he did know him and had witnessed all that he had sacrificed to make things right. He pulled Kirk to him. “It is,” he said, pushing away the anger that threatened to boil over. “It is.”

 

Kirk wrapped his arms around Khan’s waist and rested his head against the augment’s shoulder. He felt the steady thump of Khan’s heart against his chest, so strong and so enduring. Neither said a word for a few moments, and then he pulled back.

 

“Hang on a minute.”

 

“What?” Khan asked, still holding Kirk near him.

 

“How did you survive that explosion? You couldn’t walk.”

 

“I dragged myself toward a cargo container and used it as a makeshift shelter. I set the charge on one of the thermolyte bombs, placed it in the bag with the others, and threw it toward the ammunitions store toward the center of the room.”

 

“The cargo container held?”

 

“I was not entirely sure it would, but it did, barely. I had burns to my hands, legs, and arms. I lost consciousness for an undetermined amount of time, due to the lack of oxygen and smoke. When I regained consciousness, my back had healed well enough that I regained the use of my legs, and I crawled out. The area was still too dangerous for salvage crews, so I was able to escape without being seen. I then stole a vehicle and left the scene. I had to hide in an abandoned building for several days before I regained full strength.”

 

Kirk placed one hand on the side of Khan’s face and huffed as he shook his head. “You are unbelievable.”

 

Khan smiled. “I do what I can.” He guided Kirk’s mouth to his own and kissed the man soundly. “Now,” he murmured, teasing Kirk’s mouth with soft, dry brushes of his lips. “How are we going to get me to my crew?”

 

“You just leave that to me,” Kirk said. “I’m the one with the charm.”

 

Khan chuckled and Kirk closed his eyes, reveling in the deep rumbling purr of his friend’s voice. “I have a bed,” he murmured.

 

“I see,” Khan answered, leaving a slow, wet trail of kisses down the man’s throat.

 

“It’s warm and soft and begging to be used.”

 

“Mmm… let us not keep it waiting then,” Khan murmured, clasping Kirk’s wrist as he guided him toward the bed.

 

* * *

Kirk grunted as he landed on his back on the mattress. His shirt was rucked up over his chest and Khan’s mouth was doing wicked, wicked things to his abdomen while the augment’s fingers were busy divesting him of his pants. “Have you… shit… ever fucked… Oh, my God… a man before?” he stammered, torn between letting his head loll back and enjoying Khan’s attentions and watching as the augment did insanely hot things to his belly button with his tongue.

 

“Of course,” Khan said nonchalantly. “Haven’t you?”

 

“Um, no. Are you gay?”

 

“Gay?”

 

“Homosexual. Has sex with only other men.”

 

Khan paused then frowned up at Kirk. “Does it make a difference?”

 

“Not in the least.”

 

“Then why do you ask?”

 

“Curiosity. I don’t really know that much about you.”

 

“I do not desire men exclusively.” Khan sat back on his heels but kept his hands planted on Kirk’s thighs.  “I am the first man you’ve ever had sexual relations with.” It was a statement, not a question.

 

“Yep.”

 

“Why me?”

 

“You said it was because of your blood.”

 

“I never said that.”

 

Kirk sat up and frowned. “You said I would do anything you asked.”

 

“Oh,” Khan smirked. “You believed that, did you?”

 

“You lied to me?” Kirk asked with no small amount of incredulity.

 

“My blood, or the part of my blood that flows in your veins has nothing to do whatsoever with your attraction to me. It has physically enhanced you and it does allow a psychic bond to me, but…” he chuckled, “it doesn’t make you want me to fuck you.”

 

“How do you know I want you to fuck me? It might be the other way around, you know.”

 

Khan just smiled at him. “Oh, I know.” He stood up and pulled his shirt over his head and discarded it. He motioned to his body. “This is what makes you want me to fuck you.”

 

“You are nothing if not humble,” Kirk grumbled, but he couldn’t help but smile a little.

 

Khan pulled Kirk’s pants down and off, and then he grasped him at the knees and spread his fingers wide, sliding his hands up Kirk’s long thighs as he slowly spread the man’s legs. “And looking at you like this…”

 

Kirk’s hair was mussed, his lips swollen from the assault Khan called a kiss, he was naked from the chest down, and he was as hard as a rock. “…that is what makes me want to fuck you. And as for you doing whatever I ask, well, that is because you want me and…” he looked directly into Kirk’s eyes. “…you need me. You need me to be-”

 

“Better,” Kirk finished. “And you are. What you did at that warehouse wasn’t just for your crew; it was for mine too. You are everything I hoped you would be.”

 

Khan frowned slightly. “I am not sure how that happened.”

 

Kirk smiled. “You just needed someone to show you what you are capable of.”

 

Khan leaned forward, placing his hands on the bed on both sides of Kirk’s head. “You know what I am capable of.”

 

“And I am not afraid,” Kirk said, looking deeply into Khan’s eyes. “I’ve never had anyone up in there, you know.”

 

“Not even a woman?”

 

Kirk frowned. “What kind of girls do you imagine I’ve been with?”

 

“Knowing you, all kinds,” Khan said with a smirk.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t know me any better than I know you.”

 

“You radiate desire, Kirk. It practically comes out of your pores. I’ve seen the way you look at women, even women you don’t have any intention of sleeping with, like Dr. Marcus or Lt. Uhura.”

 

Kirk smirked. “Does that bother you, the way I look at women?”

 

Khan laughed out loud and shook his head. “You humans are so simplistic. No. I am not prone to jealousy, Kirk.”

 

“That’s good. I wouldn’t want you killing anyone because I looked at them.”

 

Khan frowned. “Do you… of course you do. I suppose I deserve that.”

 

Kirk put his hands on Khan’s shoulders. “I am sorry,” he said quietly. “That was… uncalled for.”

 

“I’d say it was entirely called for,” Khan said, moving to rise from the bed.

 

“Don’t. Please… I trust you with my life, Khan. You would never hurt me. Not now. Not after all of this.” He swallowed. “I trust you with my crew’s life.”

 

Khan looked into Kirk’s earnest gaze. He knew the man was telling the truth. “You want me after everything you’ve seen me do?”

 

“I do. I want you because of what you have done lately. And because for a guy, you are smokin’ hot.” He smiled slowly.

 

Khan smiled and pressed his forehead against Kirk’s. “It is going to hurt.”

 

“I figured it might.”

 

He looked around the room. “I need to find something to lubricate you, to ease the breaching.”

 

“God, it sounds so romantic.”

 

Khan grinned then winked at Kirk, and that was all it took. That simple gesture of affection and trust – a wink – a gesture that implies intimate knowledge of something, a shared secret. It was so common, so ordinary. Kirk couldn’t count how many women he’d winked at in his life; he had no idea. But when Khan winked at him any little bit of himself that he had held back was lost. He was Khan’s, in every way.

 

Khan disappeared into the bathroom and Kirk scrubbed his hands over his face. “Shit,” he murmured to himself. He was in deep.

 

Khan emerged with what he needed and removed his pants as he instructed Kirk to slide back onto the bed. “It will go easier if you roll to your stomach,” he said.

 

Kirk took a deep breath and rolled over, folding his arms and resting his head on them. The first touch of Khan’s slick fingers near his hole made him flinch.

 

“We do not have to do this,” Khan said, his deep baritone soothing Kirk.

 

“I am not afraid.”

 

“Yes, you are.”

 

“It’s not fear, it’s nerves. I just don’t know what to expect. I want to do this, I’m just…”

 

“Nervous.”

 

“Yeah. You’re not little, you know.”

 

Khan smiled and pressed a kiss between Kirk’s shoulder blades. “I know what will help. Up.” He patted Kirk on the hip.

 

Kirk rose to his hands and knees. Khan was kneeling behind him and he pulled back on his shoulder.

 

“All the way,” Khan said quietly. Kirk rose again, so that he was kneeling in front of Khan.

 

“Lean back against me,” Khan murmured, and Kirk complied, feeling the augment’s heat against his back, letting Khan take his weight. When Khan’s strong, slick hand wrapped around him he groaned. His hard on had flagged with his nerves, but it quickly came back to life. He gripped Khan’s hips and the augment circled one arm around his throat while the other hand slowly stroked him.

 

“God,” he moaned, dropping his head back on Khan’s shoulder and rolling his hips and thrusting into Khan’s hand. “You feel so good.”

 

Khan’s lips were on his neck and shoulder and as the rhythm of their bodies increased he felt his teeth sink into the flesh where his neck and shoulder met. He squeezed Khan’s hips hard, digging his fingers into the muscle and leaving deep purple marks in the shape of his fingertips. Khan started to move against him, the augment’s hard dick sliding between his buttocks, the tip nudging up against his balls and driving him insane.

 

“I’m close,” he rasped, and then all friction was gone. He groaned in complaint and Khan put his hand on the back of his neck and pushed. Kirk was on his hands and knees and he practically yelped at the first swipe of Khan’s wet tongue against his hole. He was fisting the sheets and shaking with need.

 

“What the… fuckfuckfuckfuck!”

 

“Very soon,” Khan purred.

 

Two slick fingers replaced the tongue and Kirk barked in surprise, clenching down on the invading digits.

 

“You have to relax, Jim,” Khan murmured, pushing in and scissoring his fingers.

 

“I’m trying, Jesus.”

 

“Do you want me to stop?”

 

“No. Just… I need a little, oh my God…” Khan’s free hand was back on his dick and all thought of any discomfort his ass was experiencing was replaced with urgent need and heat and an ache that he couldn’t explain if he tried. Khan guided him to lean back against him again, and Kirk twisted his head, reaching behind him and gently grasping Khan’s head, and trying to reach for his mouth.

 

“You are going to feel extraordinary,” Khan breathed against Kirk’s mouth as a third finger joined the other two. “Let go, Jim,” he murmured. “Let go.”

 

Kirk growled as he came, his whole body tensing before he went boneless and pliant in Khan’s arms.

 

When he was penetrated, the warm flush of his orgasm was replaced with a bright, hot pain. Khan remained motionless, one arm locked around Kirk’s throat, the other hand pressing against his lower abdomen, fingers spread wide, holding him in place.

 

“Breathe,” he whispered into Kirk’s ear. “Take it all in, let the pain wash over you then let it go. Do not fight it.”

 

Kirk struggled for breath, drawing a shaky one in before releasing it. The pain diminished as his body began to relax and accept the invasion. Then he realized: _he is inside me..._

 

_I am,_ Khan responded silently. _I am inside your body and your mind. I am all around you, part of you and you are part of me. You are safe. I will never allow anyone to hurt you or anyone you love. You are mine. I am yours. We are one._

 

He arched his back and Khan started to move. It was painful but it was also the most incredibly intimate thing he had ever experienced. He had never felt anything like it, physically or emotionally in his life.

 

It took everything Khan had not to thrust with abandon into Kirk’s tight, hot body. It had been so long since he had experienced physical intimacy with anyone. Their first time together had been good but it had been tainted by the specter of what was to come when they rescued his crew. This was different. There was no danger, no sense of urgency to end the suffering of his people, no mission, no threat of death. Just this man whom he’d grown to love and the astounding gift of trust he’d given him.

 

He was speaking, both out loud and psychically to Kirk, telling him he felt good, encouraging him, praising him as he began to quicken his rhythm, thrusting a little deeper each time, angling for that place that would set Kirk’s body on fire. When he found it, Kirk cried out and bucked back against him. Khan smiled, holding the young man steady as he breathed heavily in his ear. Kirk’s whole body went rigid for a moment, clamping down around his length while he was buried inside him. It would only take one or two more thrusts at best to finish him off if he willed it. He stilled inside Kirk, not wanting it to end, his free hand falling to Kirk’s crotch and finding his lover hard again.

 

Kirk moved to touch himself and Khan growled low, “No. Let me.”

 

A string of half-whispered curses spilled from Kirk’s lips when Khan started to move again, thrusting in time with the strokes he bestowed upon Kirk’s hard length. He came buried deep in Kirk, then stroked his lover to completion, holding Kirk upright as he shook through his second orgasm.

 

Kirk lay on his belly, blinking at Khan who was exiting the bath after having cleaned them both up. Khan smiled and chuckled softly, turning the lights off as he crossed toward the bed.

 

“What are you laughing at,” Kirk grumbled half into the pillow.

 

“You have been well and truly fucked, Captain.” Khan climbed into the bed, running his hand over Kirk’s muscled arm, his lover’s skin glowing pink in the aftermath of their exertions.

 

Kirk laughed and nodded. “Yeah. It was awesome.”

 

“You’ll be thanking me tomorrow,” Khan said with a smile as he pulled the blankets over them both.

 

“I’m thanking you now.”

 

“Yes, but tomorrow, when you aren’t so sore you can’t sit down, you will thank me again for that part of me that flows in your veins.”

 

“I’ve been thankful for that particular thing many, many times.”

 

As Khan lay down, Kirk wiggled over and curled against him. Khan smiled and hummed approval before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep


	10. Chapter 10

  **Chapter Ten**

 

“How did you convince him?” Kirk asked.

 

Spock stood beside his Captain, his hands behind his back as he watched Khan’s people swarming their leader. “I am quite reasonable and persuasive, even to myself.”

 

“We have the strangest conversations,” Kirk said in a bemused voice.

 

“Indeed,” Spock agreed.

 

Kirk smiled and laughed quietly as Sasha and Alexander leapt onto their crouched leader. Khan fell over backwards trying to hold on to them. “They love him,” he said softly.

 

Spock looked at his friend but didn’t speak his mind. The children were not the only ones who loved Khan, apparently. “I have falsified identification for him. While Starfleet is willing to allow Khan’s people to live here on New Vulcan, they will not be so willing to allow him to remain free.”

 

“Yeah,” Kirk sighed. “It’s best for them to believe he’s dead.”

 

“The medical staff are prepared for the alteration to Khan’s genetic code.”

 

“I don’t think he needs it,” Kirk said.

 

“It is for the best,” Spock said. “None of the others have suffered negative consequences.”

 

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. But I’m telling you, he’s changed. Ever since those days in San Francisco before we rescued his crew members, he’s been different.”

 

“That remains to be seen, Captain.”

 

Kirk nodded. This wasn’t a battle he was prepared to fight. “It’s fine. He said he would do it, and he recommitted to that on the way here. He knows it will help everyone be more comfortable in his presence.”

 

“It is for the best.”

 

Kirk smiled again when Khan was led away by Sasha and Alexander holding each of his hands.

 

“Nioyta would like you to join us for dinner, as would Mr. Spock.”

 

“I’m having dinner with you, your future wife, and your future self?”

 

“If you are willing.”

 

“I’d love to,” Kirk said. “Can I bring a date?”

 

Spock looked in the direction of a departing Khan. “I am not sure Nyota will be willing to-”

 

“Yeah, of course. You’re right. None of you know him like I do.”

 

“Give it time, Captain.”

 

“I will. Can I bring anything?”

 

“Wine would be desirable.”

 

“Great. I’ll bring wine.” Kirk nodded as he watched Spock walk away, then he turned and walked toward his quarters.

 

* * *

 

 

“You look happy,” Kirk said as he handed Khan a glass of scotch.

 

“I am, thanks to you. I had almost forgotten what it feels like.” He took a sip and savored the burn. “How was your dinner with your friends?”

 

“Nice. Good. Uhura was actually… happy to see me.”

 

Khan smirked and sipped his scotch. “She is formidable.”

 

“You’re telling me. How was your evening?”

 

“Wonderful,” Khan said, placing his glass down and walking toward Kirk. “I will never be able to repay you for what you have given me, Jim.”

 

“You already have.”

 

“My people and I, we will not let anyone harm you or yours.” Khan squeezed Kirk’s shoulder. “When must you return to Earth?”

 

“I have a few days left.”

 

“And then?”

 

“Back to the Academy for me for a little while. I’m going to be an instructor.”

 

“What will you be teaching?”

 

“Ethics, if you can believe that.”

 

Khan chuckled and Kirk placed his glass down and took the augment’s face in his hands. “They tell me that I might have my ship back in a year’s time. I could use someone like you on my crew.”

 

“I am honored that you would put such trust in me, but my place is here, with my people.”

 

Kirk released Khan. “Yeah, I figured you’d say that.”

 

“Jim,” Khan reached out and clasped his hand. “You will have reason to visit New Vulcan, more than once, I hope.”

 

“Sure.”

 

“I will be here, when you do.”

 

“I hate you, you know,” Kirk said.

 

Khan smiled. “I know you do.” He caressed the back of Kirk’s hand with his thumb. “Maybe one day, you’ll hate me enough to give up Starfleet and live here with me.”

 

Kirk blinked back tears that were threatening to fall. “You son of a bitch,” he rasped. “You made me fall in love with you.”

 

Khan took Kirk’s face in his hands. “No. You made me into someone you could love.”

 

“So this is all my fault.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Kirk huffed then wrapped his arms around Khan as his lover kissed him and slowly guided him backwards toward his bed.

 

* * *

 

**Epilogue**

 

Kirk sighed as he looked at himself in the mirror. He was donned in his ceremonial uniform. He was grey around the temples, and there were a few more lines in his face than he’d like, but he looked damned good for a sixty-five year old man. Unlike his contemporaries, he wasn’t carrying a paunch, his skin was still mostly smooth, his muscles still strong, his bones stronger, his eyes clear and his mind sharp. Khan’s DNA couldn’t stop the progression of time, but it did make it kinder.

 

He entered the sitting room of his quarters and glanced at the clock. If he didn’t leave soon, he’d be late for his own retirement ceremony. He had given the best years of his life to Starfleet and earned an Admiralty as a reward, and he didn’t entirely regret it. But now it was time for him to bid farewell to the stars and hello to a new life on a new world. Knowing that the love of his life was waiting there for him made it easier.

 

In all the years they had been apart, Kirk’s unlikely love for Khan never diminished. Sure, he occasionally flirted with a woman, but he never took another lover. Khan was right. He was ruined for anyone else. As he looked out the window at the city below, he thought of his lover now and wondered what he was doing. In mere hours they would be together again, and Kirk knew he’d never leave.

 

The door chime announced the arrival of his friends, and he smiled. Carol Marcus was the first to greet him by putting her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. Bones followed, embracing him and clapping him on the back. They were a lovely pair, long since married. Scotty, Sulu, and Chekhov were also there, having earned brief leave from their respective commands, as were Uhura and Spock. Spock looked as good as ever, thanks to his Vulcan genes that also made the passage of time slower for him in terms of aging. It was encouraging to him to see that they were also still deeply in love after years of marriage.

 

They traveled to Starfleet Headquarters together, laughing and sharing stories of their exploits at the reception after the ceremony. They all toasted to Christopher Pike. What they didn’t talk about was the miraculous rescue mission of the human augments, that story was for their own ears and no others. At the end of the evening, Kirk closed up his apartment in San Francisco, and boarded a shuttle to the space station.

 

Upon arriving at the Enterprise, he saluted Sulu, her new captain, and asked for permission to board, and then he was safely ferried to his new home on New Vulcan. Saying goodbye to her, to the ship that had in part made him who he was, was nearly as difficult as when he said goodbye to Khan all those years ago. True, he had visited when he could, but those visits had never been enough. He didn’t know if he’d ever see the Enterprise again, so he took a long walk through her passageways and decks, saving the Bridge for last. Then he left her in Sulu’s capable hands and was transported to the surface of his new home.

 

Khan had been busy in Kirk’s absence. He had undergone the procedure to correct his defective DNA. Despite his claim that he didn’t want to atone, that was exactly what he did. He temporarily took charge of the new Vulcan guard until its captains were seasoned enough to take the reins themselves. Once he was no longer a warrior, he became a teacher – instructing the new recruits to the Vulcan military academy in battle tactics and military history. In his spare time, he devoured information, filling in what blanks he had not filled during his brief time on Earth. And he took up gardening. He found that cultivating living things, rather than just young minds, gave him purpose. He developed a massive indoor arboretum that contained examples of Earth’s different ecosystems.

 

Upon arrival on New Vulcan, Kirk asked about Khan’s whereabouts, and then entered the massive arboretum. It was like being back on Earth as he followed the directions that the head’s up display provided. He smiled as he read the sign above the door, then he entered.

 

He walked beneath tall spruce and past lush ferns to Khan’s favorite part of the arboretum. It was an Alpine ecosystem, complete with streams and butterflies and bees and fields of wildflowers. The air was clean and crisp and if he didn’t look up at the alien skies above New Vulcan, he’d swear he was back at the fishing cabin in Alberta. He found Khan napping on a blanket amidst a field of heather, lavender and poppies, bathed in warm light. He moved as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake his lover. He stood over him, looking down at his placid face. A few grey hairs stood out amongst his still predominantly black head of hair. Those and a few wrinkles around Khan’s eyes were the only thing that betrayed the otherwise still youthful appearance. He lowered himself down to his knees, remembering all those years ago when he watched Khan in cryosleep, not knowing then how he would feel later.

 

“Admiral,” Khan said with a gentle smile, his eyes still closed. “Have you just arrived?”

 

“I came straight here,” Kirk answered, a smile of his own appearing as Khan opened his eyes and looked at him. Every time Khan looked him in the eye, Kirk lost his breath.

 

“How was the celebration?”

 

“Long, but good. I wish you could have been there.”

 

“Mr. Spock ensured that I could watch it on the data screen in our quarters.”

 

Kirk nodded. “Speaking of our quarters…”

 

“Yes?” Khan asked, reaching up to touch Kirk’s face.

 

“Can we go there now?” Khan chuckled and Kirk smiled, closing his yes. “God, I miss that sound so much when I’m away.”

 

“And you will have no cause to miss it any longer, as we have no further cause to be parted,” Khan said, then he folded his legs as he sat up. “I procured a new bed,” he said, taking Kirk’s hand and allowing the man to pull him to his feet.  


“Really?” Kirk said allowing Khan to lead him back toward their dwelling.

 

“You complained last you were here about the other being too hard. Perhaps this one will be to your liking.”

 

“I am sure it will be perfect.”

 

“We are to have our evening meal with Kati and Joaquim in a few hours, and Sasha and Alexander are eager to show you their work in quantum mechanics.”

 

“I am sure I will have no idea what they are talking about.”

 

Khan smiled and slipped his arm around Kirk’s waist. “Just smile and nod.”

 

Kirk chuckled and leaned his head on Khan’s shoulder. “Yes, dear.”

 

~Finis


End file.
